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Jun 16, 2009 17:29

SORRY, MORE QUESTIONS. For America is a big, big country and Americans are a HARDY PEOPLE who think nothing of having to drive a couple of hours to get groceries or whatever. Any drive over about six hours just seems RIDICULOUS AND UNREASONABLE to me (and I would probably start complaining at the five hour mark), SO. I need outside perspective ( Read more... )

plz send help, lol america

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genarti June 17 2009, 14:31:52 UTC
Seconding all of what rhythmsextion said -- my family's done a ton of road-tripping with two dogs, although all of it on the East Coast rather than the west. You have to have dogs who are tolerant of being cooped up in a car for a long time -- and who don't get miserably car-sick -- but most dogs will be fine with that after an initial adjustment. (Usually, in my experience, they're hyper for a little while either because GOING SOMEWHERE GOING SOMEWHERE OOH OOH EXCITING!!! or because they think they're going to the kennel or the vet's office and they don't wanna.)

It's a good idea to have a medium-to-big tupperware bowl full of water, so you can keep the lid on when you're driving, but you can give the dogs a drink when you stop somewhere. Or on a flat stretch of highway, if you have steady hands and it's not too full, but water's likely to slop around some then. You can refill it from the bathroom sink at a gas station or rest stop. I'd absolutely do this on any trip of more than an hour or two.

Rest stops -- do you have those in the UK? They're little facilities off the highway which have bathrooms, vending machines, usually a map of the area and some random brochures for tourist attractions. Sometimes they might have a coffee station set up, with coffee urns and cream and sugar and stuff, if someone's sponsoring it; otherwise there'll probably be a vending machine that serves hot drinks like coffee and hot chocolate (terrible, but hot and caffeinated), one with soda and maybe some juice and water, and one with snack foods. There's generally some picnic space and grassy areas to take a walk, or to give your dogs a walk; it might or might not include a scenic overlook, in the mountains. (If it doesn't, at least in Vermont, the mountain roads have periodic pull-over spots where you can pull onto the shoulder of the road at a scenic overlook and admire the view. There isn't any kind of grassy area there, but you could let your dogs stretch their legs a little there too.) Usually there's some sort of bored caretaker-person to clean things and answer questions, but you don't want to count on anyone being there. The fancier ones are called "service stations" I think, and they tend to be a food court-type building with several fast-food restaurants and a gas station or two. You'll usually find those ones nearer to cities, and the more bare-bones ones farther out. How much distance there is between rest stops varies a lot. I'd say in my experience it's anywhere between half an hour and an hour, but that's just a guess, and it's also East Coast-based; I'm not sure, for the area you're talking about.

And for motels: some do, some don't. (Some of the ones that don't, you can smuggle pets in, but obviously you want to be careful about that.) My parents recently did a road trip to pick up a dog they'd adopted, and there was one particular cheap chain that did... I don't remember which, I'm afraid, though Holiday Inn sounds vaguely familiar. Holiday Inn, Motel 6, Super 8 -- all those are pretty low-budget chains. They're not necessarily deeply sketchy, but they're bare-bones.

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