Not long ago, Paul and I spent a few days camping with my parents, Jamie and Susie, as they travel around the southwest in their small RV with their black German Shepherd Daisy. We brought Conrad with us: he was really quite stellar despite the totally new mode of life.

My parents keep blogs of their travels, so you can see what we did with them. We appear about halfway through this entry on my father’s travel log. He has the good descriptions and pictures. And you’ll find the funny pictures capturing the essence of our adventures on this entry of my mother’s blog.

The dogs got along famously, despite a bit of barking at first. Conrad is a dominant dog, but he learned that he had to play the part of the submissive puppy to get Daisy to play with him. Here’s a picture of them playing from my father’s blog:

And here’s a drawing of them playing with toys from my mother:

Conrad hasn’t had much of an interest in toys, but Daisy showed him the true pleasure of the activity. She shredded one of his toys — a long stuffed squeaky dog — into bite-sized bits in about three minutes. In return, Conrad was delighted to jump around in the bushes while vigorously shaking one of her toys. It was hugely entertaining for everyone.

Although I did work some during the trip, the break from the usual grind was really, really good for me. I don’t think I would have been able to work the monster week that I did last week — over 70 hours (!!) of writing and editing — without that.