Adaptability is his Middle Name

I was really worried about taking Ray to a hotel. But my sister, Kathy, was flying in to Virginia so that we could drive to S. Carolina together, and her flight wasn't due to arrive until 2:00. Because it's an 8 hour drive, two whole days at either end of her vacation would be taken up with travel. So we decided that I would pick her up at the airport and, if her flights were all on time and her arrival wasn't delayed (never expect a flight to be on time, you will only be disappointed), we would immediately hit the road. We would drive for 3 or 4 hours to get a good headstart, stay at a hotel overnight, and be at my parents house by noon the next day.

The only catch was finding a pet-friendly hotel; one for which we could make last-minute reservations. I spent some time doing research before our trip and settled on Country Inn and Suites in Rocky Mount, N.C.

All went as planned. Kathy's flight was on time, we hit the road immediately, managed to make a last-minute reservation, and arrived at the hotel by 7:00. The only hitch was, by the time we arrived all of the pet-friendly rooms were occupied. (If you read my comment in the previous blog, you know that they gave us the room designated for handicapped, if you didn't read it, now you know).

Ray was initially a little trepidatious at entering a room that didn't have a friendly person in it. But once he was persuaded that it was ok, he did his usual routine of pacing and pacing to memorize the layout. (This is a bit disconcerting if you don't know what he's doing.) He was also a little whiny at first but I figured maybe he just had to pee so I took him outside for a walk around the grounds. There was a nice grassy area with a large pond and a couple of geese. Ray paced and paced and paced. I thought maybe he was looking for a place to poop but it turned out he was trying to memorize the layout of that area too. He walked me all around the perimeter of the hotel a couple of times before I persuaded him to return to the room. I showed him the back entrance to the hotel, and after a couple more laps around the hotel and a couple more times entering through the back entrance, Ray felt comfortable that he could find this exit in case of a fire. The whining stopped and we settled in for the night.

I was particularly worried that there would be comings and goings and strange voices in the hall during the night. Ray doesn't like comings and goings and strange voices, and his usual reaction is a menacing growl followed by a warning arooooo, followed by a more vigorous AROOooooo, followed by his raise-the-roof ARROOOOOOOOOOO. So I had some 'concerns'. Kathy had been apprised of these concerns and we were both prepared to hit the road again if we were tossed out on our kiesters.

But Ray did none of these things. He woke me to go outside sometime after 11 and again around 5 am but at neither of these times did he arooooo, AROOoooooo, or ARROOOOOOOOOOO. The night was calm. Ray was perfectly content to sleep with me and take up 3/4 of the queen bed. And I was perfectly content with my meager bit of the mattress.

The next morning we made a couple more laps around the hotel, packed up our stuff and hit the road again.