Travels with Loki and Gawain

  About three years ago, in October 2019, we were dropping some old blankets off at the Humane Society in Laconia, New Hampshire. I decided while there that I would look at the dogs up for adoption. I really had no intention of adding a new dog to our small pack. I caution you now.   Never go look at dogs at a shelter unless you plan to get one. Because you will. It was love at first site. When I was growing up, we had a string of Beagles. Ike (my parents were Republicans then), Snoopy and Spot (yes Spot). Spot lived the longest, he died of very old age when I was away at college in Santa Cruz, California. Spot had slept at my side through my pre-teen and teen years. When I was in junior college in Saratoga, California he would track me to my class a few miles from our house and be waiting for me when I came out of the lecture hall or lab. Before I could get to him, some other student whom I didn’t know would greet him, “Spot how are you doing buddy.” And I’d say, “Come-on...

Travel on roads in America is easy and I imagine elsewhere as well. The hard part is the where to sleep and what to sleep in. I have a Nissan Armada, which is big, and a Jeep Wrangler which is not. I could sleep in the Armada, but I’m afraid if I do that too much, people will think I live in my car. As it is, my children think I live like I’m homeless when I’m away from New Hampshire by myself. That is probably because at the house I own in Florida, I sleep on an inflatable mattress and have no electricity, water and stuff. But the roof doesn't leak. I figure I can do the Armada thing with the Jeep towed behind it on the way down to Florida, but after that, I’ll need a less homeless appearing solution. I’ve got an infinite number of possibilities, and I keep adding new ones. What is infinity plus one? I’m a dreamer, a daydreamer, a planner, an idea man, a thinker of stuffer. Some of my ideas are crazy, and after a few weeks of letting them simmer, I discard them. Some are...

  Travels with Gawain and Loki Introduction 1: I turned 67 in August and although I’m hoping to live many more years, I thought now would be a good time to start some adventuring. I have chosen two dogs as my adventuring companions. Gawain, a blue-eyed Husky Lab with an awful disposition around the wrong people (my wife can show you the scars and her now crocked thumb). He growls and snarls and bares his teeth whenever I pull him out of my chair, but other than that I am not one of the wrong people (alpha male beating his chest). The other adventurer is a Beagle named Loki, who true to his name and breed is mischievous and obnoxious. Gawain is named after the 14th-Century Middle English Arthurian legend of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. And keeping with this scholarly and erudite naming convention, Loki is named after the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s character. I was named for my grandfather on my mother’s side. Get the three of us together and it can be loud, as in a ca...