We had made plans to head towards Yellowstone Natl Park where we made a reservation at an RV park for 2 weeks starting June 2nd. We know it’s early for that area and there still may be snow, but we wanted to be there before the summer crowds hit.

But, while we were in Carlsbad, NM Laddy took a turn for the worse and got real sick and passed away. He had been diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) 10 months ago and was on medications and really started slowing down. Also, his back legs had arthritis and he had a lot of trouble getting into and out of the RV and the truck. It’s a real hard decision to make but we know it was best for Laddy. We had a few hard days afterwards as well, he was such a big part of our family.

We still wanted to head toward Yellowstone and our plan was to stop for a few days in Santa Fe, NM, then head into Colorado going into the mountainous area west of Denver. We’d been through that area before and it’s so pretty. We had enough time booked in Grand Lake, CO that we could go into the Rocky Mtn Natl Park at least once. Then we would head to the east side of Yellowstone and stay in Wapiti, WY which is near Cody.

As we headed into Santa Fe we were worried about the two huge fires burning, one east and one west of Santa Fe. We knew they were about 40 miles either side of the city but on the way into Santa Fe we could see the eastern fire burning in the mountains. Here’s a picture of it:

Then, the weather reports started talking about heavy snow in the area we were going towards in just a couple of days. We decided to change our plans and go through Colorado on the eastern side of Denver which is not in the mountains and while there would be snow it wouldn’t be as bad. The day we were planning to head toward Grand Lake I looked at some live webcams in the area and saw it was already snowing and weather reports showed snow for the next two days as well. Here’s a picture of the road at about 10,000 ft that we would have been driving on one day after this picture was taken:

At the same time that our plans were changing, we also knew we wanted to find another Doberman to join our family. We were concerned about rescue organizations as they usually want to visit your home, make sure you have a yard and plenty of room for a dog. Well, we live in an RV and travel a lot so we were afraid we wouldn’t be qualified. We looked at a lot of animal shelters and humane societies webpages and there are very few full-breed Dobermans. We decided to take a chance and contact the rescue organization in Tehachapi, CA where we got Laddy, as Jeff had kept in contact with the owner once or twice a year with pics and stories about Laddy.

YAY! They were very open to letting us adopt another Doberman from them! We don’t want to wait, so we are changing our plans once again and heading from Santa Fe, NM to Tehachapi CA in the next couple of days to meet with them and pick out another Dobie.

After we spend some time in Tehachapi to get to know our new Dobie and to let him/her get comfortable with us, we’ll head north and try to see the places we are missing with our mixed up plans.