2023 promises to be another memorable year. We have decided to take a trip through the wild west once more. We hit the road on Jan 10. It was not without its challenges in terms of getting ready and taking care of all the little things that can go wrong in our absence. I am sure plenty will go wrong despite our planning.

Moving on to the positives, we hit the road in freezing winter. Ten days and thousands of miles later, we are in sunny Arizona. Our first destination is a ham fest at Quartzsite Arizona that begins tomorrow. We have roped our daughters in to take their first ham exams this week at the ham fest. They will try to get their technician licenses, just as Johan and I did in 2019!

This trip is a lot different from the previous for the following reasons. We towed a jeep along last time. This time we are towing Elfie the school bus. Dory, our giant transit bus camper, is a super trooper, merrily towing along Elfie. The second big deviation is that we now have two dogs to stub our toes in the bus instead of one. Where are these staid dogs they often show in ads that lay around blissfully in moving vehicles? Our dogs are constantly whining, pushing, falling, fighting and doing pretty much the opposite of what dogs are “supposed” to do!

Last, but certainly not the least, we decided to take along our chickens to the trip! I know, I know. That’s crazy, silly, wild, you name it. But yeah, we can’t part with our ladies. In order to prepare for this monumental occasion, Tanya and Johan made a nifty chicken tractor for our chickens. Pictures below. Upon much goading, Rosie, our older dog, and Crazy Cookie, one of our two younger chickens, have agreed to write a paragraph each in my blog outlining their experiences. See the end of the blog.

The first few days of our trip were eventful in the sense that we left town in a big hurry. We couldn’t afford to work in the bitter cold anymore. Dory and Elfie weren’t hooked up together so Johan drove Dory and I drove Elfie. We talked using ham radio. This was the maximum I have used my ham radio license so far. It was pretty enjoyable.

Finally in Tennessee, Dory and Elfie were coupled and since then I have been involved with running our daily lives as smoothly as possible. This involves keeping the camper reasonably clean, keeping the kitchen running and schoolwork going. Additionally all animals are kept reasonably happy and satisfied.

We stopped at the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) museum at Sweetwater, TX, and the Permian basin petroleum museum in Midland TX. Both the museums were informative and fun to check out. We liked the WASP more than the petroleum museum, but they both had their charms.

Other than that, its driving, rest areas, gas stations, walmarts, dog walks and chicken care. I will let Rosie and Crazy Cookie take it from here.

Rosie: So I am 13+ now. You would think that my humans would let me enjoy my twilight years in my crate, with an occasional adventure in the backyard. Well, you would think wrong! My humans have assumed that I am as enthusiastic about a road trip as I was back in 2019 when I was practically a spring chicken. They are dragging me all over creation, with this obnoxious husband of mine named Kylo Ren, and, get this, chickens. Ok more later.

Crazy Cookie: It was a fine January day. I got up thinking about which chicken I needed to bully in order to remain on top of the pecking order. Guess what! My big roosters (people) from the house have lost it totally. They put us in this box (I do like the box, its shiny!). The box was put in a big yellow box that has wheels and we have been unceremoniously carted around throughout the country. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to that crumb I hid behind the tire. I am sure the blue jay got it (sigh). Anyhoo. Every morning and evening, they pull shiny box out, tip it and remove the cardboard under us. Then we get to free range. Then they put a new cardboard in. But the worst is when the young girls called Tanya and Leena put us on leash like their four legged monsters and let us walk around in that. Ohhh. I have to recover from my ordeal. More later.