We knew the pain was coming. We knew saying goodbye was coming. We shed tears in anticipation of losing our best traveling dog. We gave extra loves, extra pets, extra time, extra treats. We consistently reminded Sage she was a good girl. But we still hurt. Goodbye tore our hearts. Leaving her gutted us.
This past week has been a bit of a mixed bag, but mostly, it’s been the worst. There’s a cloud over us. A gaping hole in our daily lives that we are struggling to navigate. Our time was up at the RV park in Dodge City shortly after losing Sage, and our next stop was only a couple hours away in Wichita, Kansas. But it might as well have been across the oceans. The Pet Haven Crematory through the Dodge City vet’s office was going to take care of our Sagey girl, and since we are traveling, offered to mail the cremains anywhere we saw fit. I couldn’t imagine sending her in the mail to anywhere we were not. We extended our stay in Wichita so we could pick up Sage when she was ready and have her with us. That was the only love in Sage’s life – being with her people.
In an attempt to get away from the sorrow, we took the boys to the Boot Hill Museum of Dodge City. Getting out of the RV and being distracted by a walk through the Old West was good for all of us. Boot Hill was interactive and cured the boys’ urges to touch, poke, prod, and climb. We read about and witnessed the life of Wyatt Earp and other Hall of Fame late 1800’s cowboys and gunfighters, the woman behind the hit character of Miss Kitty in the TV series ‘Gunsmoke’, and the headstones and stories of the original Boot Hill cemetery residents. The employees throughout the experience were role-playing within the era of the museum which gave our three boys a nice “Send it!” down the Saloon’s bar with a bottle of Sarsaparilla. Sidenote: the boys discovered their dislike for Sarsaparilla at that museum.
Sage’s goodbye was last Thursday, we moved a couple hours down the road to Wichita on Friday, and we’ve been trying to fill the emptiness since. After weeks of filling our days with hikes, adventures, travel, and experiences, this last week has been slow as we reassess our road ahead. Honestly, I’m struggling to find the bright side of this town. I’m sure it’s the grieving that has cast a veil over my opinion of this town, but I’m ready to not be here, nor would I like to come back.
Though the RV park itself is actually rather great (paved roads, drive-thru parking spots for all rig sizes, and grass between each site), everything thing else has been rather undesirable. Emergency vehicle sirens are constant and seem to ramp up at night. The accompaniment of bullets added to the shrills one night. The Walmart here is the black sheep of all Walmarts and is a shining example of all the worst Walmart stories a person has seen or read. The traffic is absurd and rushed (why is a blinker optional here??). All the little things that would otherwise be a drop in the bucket and brushed off as unmemorable seem to have a lasting effect on me as I try to put one foot in front of the other.
Jason, the wonderful husband and dad he is, knows we’re all in a funk after losing Sage and planned a couple of outings for us to lift our spirits. On Saturday, he took us to Wichita’s Museum of World Treasures. As happenstance would have it, the Museum was also having a Farmer’s Market in their parking lot. Win for me! As we wandered through the market, we couldn’t help but notice all the folks with their dogs. We smiled and appreciated, wondered which dog breed would be best, laughed how Sage and her 200lb best self would be the talk of the market over all these other happy pups.
Then we ventured on into the Museum. Wow, there was so much to see! Dinosaur bones, fossils, ancient Egypt’s coffins, and real mummified remains. It was three floors of marveling the world’s eras and humanity’s expansion through time. The history of coins, early rulers, and the stories of each of their demise, World War I and II history, facsimiles of documents from each of the U.S. Presidents, real SHRUNKEN HEADS were on display alongside medicine doctor kits and Native American artifacts. We spent hours walking through history. Pop Quiz: What did a cowboy call a stupid horse? A hammerhead. (Cue the ongoing joke of the day for our family: What a hammerhead!)
I was whisked away on a fabulous date night that Jason planned as well. We haven’t had time to just talk between the two of us since we left over a month ago. A perk of living and traveling in an RV is the closeness you experience with your family. We’re all we’ve got out on the road for conversations, games, sports, etc. That perk can also be a hinderance when Mom and Dad need to talk about big decisions, or just talk about nothing that has to do with video games, Legos, or made-up characters that have “ultimate, mega, super, over-powered abilities”. Just us adults, sharing our hearts and ideas over an adult dinner with no sign of chicken nuggets or crayon menus. We needed it. We talked about future business ideas, where we ultimately see ourselves, how much we appreciate and cherish this road we’re on and get to experience it all together. The food was not good. The conversation and the company were 5-stars.
Jason and I took the sullen 5-hour roundtrip to pick up Sage’s cremains on Sunday and now Sage is back where she loved to be – with her people. Yesterday, we got away from the hollowness of the RV and spent the better part of the day at the local zoo. At only $15 per adult (12yrs and up), the cost vs. experience was exceptional at the Sedgewick County Zoo. The red pandas were off exhibit, but every other animal was out for us to see. It's also their off-season, which meant most concessions and special presentations weren't running, but that also meant zero lines or crowds. There was one crew of power-walking mamas with their babies in strollers getting their steps in, but other than that, we were able to walk at our own pace, saw everything we wanted to, and enjoyed our time as a family.
Saying goodbye to Sage, the tears that keep flooding our eyes, and the obvious canyon-deep space that is missing from our wolfpack were too much to bear, and we needed a knock-your-socks-off-amazing mood lifter. Jason found a Great Wolf Lodge right in line with our travel to see family in Kansas City, Missouri, and booked it for the next two nights.
Since it would be utterly boring to just tell the boys where we’re going, we made it a surprise, and created a game they had to play to figure it out. Since we aren’t just their parents, we’re also their teachers, Jason looked through facts about the States of America to create trivia questions (ie. The oldest town in the US is in this State). Once the boys researched and answered all the questions correctly, we gave them cards with all the answers on them. Then they had to take the one underlined letter of each answer and unscramble them to spell out the surprise. It was a fun way to blow the boys’ minds.
That’s where we are now, on the road to Great Wolf Lodge for the next three days and two nights. We plan on swimming and magic wand questing ourselves into full exhaustion. Selfishly, I’m over-the-moon excited about getting out of the RV and into a hotel room where I can sleep in a full-length bed and take a shower with infinite running water. Life’s luxuries are different when you’re living in a 22-year-old motorhome.
So here’s to missing our travel buddy, to our new road ahead, and to leaving our humbug attitudes in Wichita.
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