Play Daze at Carlee's!

The whole reason for stopping off at Hallsville was to see Susan & Joe and their pup, Carlee.  And after a good night's sleep (with a little yellow dog in his crate...), we were ready to visit (and referee...!)!

Carlee has about THREE awesome acres to play on, and play our dogs did!!  

 At times a little too vigorously...  But they are all good friends and had a great time racing and chasing!

 And bumbling and tumbling...

 Susan and Joe have a beautiful backyard!  Including gorgeous blooming pear trees...

Past the pear trees is a secret, magical forest...

 But Joe and Susan knew what the dogs soon figured out - this forest is REALLY a playground...!!

Hayes & Carlee get the party started...

 Sometimes it's two dogs, sometimes it's all three at once... (that was often when the parents had to intervene...!  Too much of a good thing...!?!)

When it's two, it doesn't matter which two...

 it's all fun!

 We all had a GREAT time at Joe/Susan/Carlee's place!!

My Zouey poses for me in front of another pretty flowering tree. 

 A break in the serious business of play - Joe, Hayes, and Bill share the bench.

 Hayes REALLY likes his Uncle Joe!!!

 The Three Musketeers?  The Three Amigos?  At least, The Three Crazy Dog Pals!!

 Finally...  Tired!

 My pretty girl.

 Winding down...

 Lest his Auntie Susan feel left out...  Hayes says "Thank you!!!!  I had the BEST time here today!!!!!!!  I love this place!  I love your dog!  I love you!!! (and I would have loved your lasagna if you all had let me...!!)"

 Fun is good, at any angle.

But all good things must come to an end, and as the saying goes, this looks like the end, my friend...

The first few Hayes Dayes

 

 Foster mom, Stacie, and Mr. Hayes.  Stacie and I are now co-moms!  Stacie really saved this little guy's life.  He was on the short list for euthanasia at the shelter when she agreed to foster him...  Thank God she is so big-hearted!!!

 Stacie, Jan (Hayes' other savior!), Bill, and the doggies.

Hayes and Zou pretty much hit it off right away.  Like Stacie says, looks like they're hugging here!  And what a matched pair, eh?!

 Hayes has made remarkably fast progress with so much!!  But the first few days were kind of tough.  Understandably so, of course.  And yet, on that very first evening, we were all able to come together - amazing, the power of a sandwich!!   :)

 We're still working on the Hayes-cats relationships.  They are fast becoming friends, but those early days required pretty intense supervision...  Here, Tractor and Hayes are intensely supervising each other!

 Hayes is unsure in this image, this is all new to him.  But this guy knows about love!  He knows how to give it, and he knows how to receive it!!  All of which has earned him the nickname, Lover Bug!  And I can tell you he is MUCH more at ease in his new environment nowadays!

 Eyes on the the prize (food, of course!).

Happy to share in the harvest.

 Hayes is a great car & RV dog!  He loves to ride!  When we left Dallas and headed east again, there was a happy harmony in that moving motor home!

 Tractor in his rightful riding place.

 Hayes ends up on the couch, snoozing.

 Hayes' first rest stop!

 A sweet Hayes look.  He has a lot of those.  Here, he's probably also saying "I know I'm really close to the cat, but Dad said it was OK this time!"

 Two tuckered-out pooches!

 We stopped off at Hallsville, TX (near Longview), to visit friends (Susan, Joe, and Carlee - remember them from the Sattler stop?).  We were too pooped to get together that first night (after some pretty sleepless first nights with you know who...!), but a certain someone still had plenty of energy...!!  You just had to laugh at his persistence, as he would repeatedly go back in the bedroom (shopping, we called it) and retrieve the exact same slipper you had just replaced...and he was always so good-humored about it - you can see he's laughing here, can't you?  "Hee-hee, this is such a fun game!  I love the way you take it from me and then put it back for me to get again!"  

 What a pair!

 Hayes is very impressed with Tractor's flying squirrel act!  "Wow, he jumps all over the place, including onto Dad's shoulder!"  But just wait Hayes!  Wait till you see Tractor's next act - The Blind Kitty in a Kleenex Box!!!

 While we were in Dallas, we decided to stop in at an interior design store (Petco...) and get a necessary piece of RV furniture.  Poor Hayes has heartworms, and he's going to have to spend a great deal of time in this crate once we start the hardcore treatment...  Turns out this crate has also been useful in getting a good night's sleep!!!

But all in all, the hard parts pale in consideration of the terrific dog we now have.  So time for a toast!  Here's to things that Are Meant To Be!!!

 And two of the main players drink to that!  Oh c'mon, a sip or two of mango margarita isn't going to hurt anybody!

 And then...the main attraction...

DINNER!!!!

NEW to you, FAMILIAR to us...

Meet HAYES...aka, OURAY the SECOND.

  On Wed., March 11th, we adopted Hayes - and reunited with our Ouraydog!!  We drove from Abbeville, LA, to Dallas to meet this cute guy (whom Bill had found on one of the many pet shelter websites he'd been checking out).  It was pretty much love at first sight (or second sight...?!).  We are guessing he's around one year old, see husky and possibly corgi in him, and definitely feel Ouray has returned to us, just as I requested a few years ago...  (http://carriebarton2012.blogspot.com/2012_08_01_archive.html)   There are small differences - Hayes has lighter brown eyes, a stubby tail, ever so slightly different coloration - but the similarities are stunning!  He has basically the same look, same personality, same attitude, same behaviors/mannerisms...  He's a super cute, super sweet, crazy young pup, sorta stubborn Ouraydog!!

I mean, seriously...  Look at this guy (his real coloring is actually lighter than it looks in this photo):

And then look at this guy:

Whaddya say?  Ouraydog, right?!!

Yeah, Ouraydog.

Welcome home, boy.

Bienvenue to Cajun Country!

Yup, we're out of Texas!  And into Louisiana!

 Ya gotta love the signs here!   :)

 We were both awed by the "Welcome to Louisiana" rest stop!  Along a lake, with pretty picnic shelters and a boardwalk over the side swamp!

 Tractor and Zou thoroughly enjoyed the boardwalk.  Here, Tracky looks out over the lake.

 Looking back at the rest area.

  

 The Dos Amigos survey their new home at the A+ Motel & RV Park in Sulphur, LA.

 This campground has a big pond...that my naughty, stir-crazy dog jumped into a day or two later!  She was going stir crazy - not having had any good romps lately - and before I knew it, she jumped into the dirty end!  See all that flotsam floating near the edge?!  Yeah, nice.  That won her an outside shower!  "Congratulations, little Medium Brown!  You have just won our top honor!  First Prize for Dirty Dog!!"

 Hmm, what are they trying to say here?!!

 oooo, a playground!!  And no "No pets" signs!!  Yay!!!

 First, it was Tractor and Zou's turn...

 Then we returned Tractor and I took Scratty and Zou to play.

 Zou was absolutely full of it.  She wanted to do what Scratty was doing!  And she ran/jumped up this ramp several times, diving back down.  The first time I tried to help her, but she leapt out of my arms!

 It was on the way back from this excursion that Zou sidelined me by diving into the dirty end...

Dinner at LeBleu's, a Cajun seafood restaurant.  I'm not into seafood so much, so I had the boudin burger, which was good.  And neither of us are into high prices, so Bill had fried oysters instead of doing the $22/person buffet.  They have A LOT of buffets in this area, which may help explain some of the "size issues" (not that I'm one to talk on that score these days!)

 Sunday was rainy, and I spent at least half the day running back and forth in it, doing the laundry (since I knew there was no laundromat at the next campground, where we'd be spending a week)!

Fog follows the rain.

 Just love some of these names!!!

There's a lot of industry in this region - primarily petrochemical refining.  It's not all like what you see here (after all, tourism is another big industry for them, as well as casinos).  For other views of the Lake Charles area, you can see the pretty place we camped last time - Sam Houston Jones State Park:  http://carriebartonphotos.blogspot.com/2010/07/into-swamplands.html