Have Bassetwagon, will travel (with Bassets) aka Trip to West Texas: Day One

We talked about our vacation time forever and finally decided against boarding our beloved Bassets, Blue, Clemmie & Gus, because we'd just miss them too much.  So we set out last Thursday to West Texas from our home in Austin for a 4-day family vacation.

I'm not going to be pretentious - our dogs are high maintenance and somewhat annoying because they are spoiled.  At home they come and go as they please thanks to a doggie door that has existed their entire lives.  So it is a big adjustment (FOR US) when we have to actually let them out, especially since we didn't know how much this needed to be done.  (Turns out that it is a minimum of three times a night - usually at 11pm, 3am and 5am.)

Let me back up a bit... My name is Tobi and my husband, Kris and I have three dogs that we are crazy about - they are all Basset Hounds: Bluebonnet is 8 years old, Clementine will turn 6 in June and Augustus will be 1 year old in July.  Our dogs do all those wonderful things like give us unconditional love, hang out with us when we're sick and make us smile.  This is the new normal - nearly everyone we know has dogs that are part of the family.  Austin is the best city in the world and it loves people who love their dogs so that means we can bring our dogs with us to almost all of our favorite places to eat & drink.  It's a truly wonderful thing!

I'm not new to blogging - after all this one's had two or three reincarnations over the past six or so years.  But I always wanted the blog to a.) be about something special, b.) be about my family and c.) be about something I wanted to share.  We have finally decided to start blogging about all of the adventures we have with our hounds.  They have been on several day trips with us around Texas and a few extended weekend visits to my parents' home in Louisiana.  I can't help but feel that it's a unique adventure when a dog is along for the ride.  However, I realize that it is very likely that I will read this blog more than anyone else but I'm still going to do it.

So back to our trip this past weekend.  We rented a house in Marfa because it had a fenced in yard.  It is in a good location for day trips to Big Bend, Alpine, Fort Davis and Marathon as well.  When we arrived, we immediately let the doggies out to get familiar with the territory.  They seemed happy enough despite a lack of shade and an overabundance of burrs.

Next post: Our day at Big Bend National Park