Turning 30 In Tennessee Pt. 1

Like the other crazy dog moms... If my dog can't come, I'm not going.

If you're following us on Instagram, you already saw that my family decided to surprise me with a trip to Gatlinburg, TN to celebrate my 30th birthday. I've done a pretty solid job of keeping most of the photos to myself so far, but I'm really excited to start sharing them and using the blog to dive deeper into the trip as a whole.

There's a lot to talk about, so I'll be covering the trip as a two part blog. Today's post is mostly about planning for the trip, and in the next post I'll dive into what we did while we were up there.

How We Ended Up In Tennessee

I have a weird love affair with nature, mountains, and the cold. I've been in Florida since I was about 9 years old, with a few intermittent trips back to Michigan and Mississippi in the years since. I think the way people feel about weather is kind of like how we feel about hair: you always want the type you don't have. Florida is hot, pretty much all the time, so I crave a little cold every now and then. Florida is also flat in most areas, so mountains hold a certain appeal too. I also haven't quite figured out how I feel about cities versus suburbs versus rural areas. In a dream world, I'd have a home in each so I could just bounce around whenever I wanted. Tennessee has the cold, the nature, the mountains, and the small town vibe I seem to find really appealing. I've talked about visiting the Gatlinburg area on and off for years, so it really was the perfect place for a surprise birthday trip.

My dad wanted to do something big because I was turning 30, and I'm his oldest kid. I have a feeling he talked with my sister and my grandma to find out what places I talked about wanting to travel to. He set the plan in motion, my sister found the AirBnB, and the rest was pretty much history. My dad kept the secret for a while. Christmas morning I opened up a Harry Potter puzzle with some printed photos of a random house. Turns out the photos were of the house we were renting. My dad had been in kahoots with my boyfriend, my grandma, and my sister the whole time. They'd already figured out who was driving with who, which dogs were loading into which cars, who was hauling the crates, etc. The only thing left for me to really do was pack, oh, and figure out what we were going to eat up there. Because despite having the gastric sleeve surgery, food is still a huge part of everything I do.

The whole pack of dogs (so, that's five if anyone's keeping track) and my family loaded up on January 20th for an expedition to the mountains of Tennessee. My grandparents met us there, coming from Mississippi, and the rest of the family left from Southwest Florida. We all together drove a combined total of over 30 hours to get there, and I'm going to say it was definitely worth it. 10/10 would do again.

What I Packed Versus What I Needed:

I'm an overpacker, there, I've admitted it. I packed enough clothes to last at least ten days, even though I was only on a four day vacation. I had all of the layers a girl could ever want for the cool mountain air. I had extra outfits for whatever weird mishaps may have happened. Mishaps like getting jumped on by muddy dogs, traversing cold creeks, falling into snow, and sliding down a clay-covered hill... and all of those things may have happened to me.

I had hats, gloves, 10 pairs of socks, at least 5 pairs of various leggings and jeans, three pairs of shoes (plus two more pairs I got as birthday presents), a couple of tank tops for layering, a handful of sweaters, a big puffy coat, and a bunch of other things too. I'm also going to say here that I used just about every item I brought. So as much as Dog Dad hated me bringing my giant suitcase, it all came in handy and I have no regrets.

Now, in terms of things I packed for the dogs... I might have done too much? So, to make this easier, I'm going to list all of the things I brought, and I'll highlight what I actually used.

• Two ChuckIts

• Eight ChuckIt Balls

• Two dog blankets

• Two dog towels

• Four dog bowls

• Twenty-four pound bag of dog food

• At least six different toys

• Two long leashes (20ft and 30ft)

• About 150 poop bags

• Pooper scooper

• At least 3 bags of treats (most from Wild Nourish Pet)

• Pork Hide Rolls from Wild Nourish Pet

• Two Ryoken Instinct Ruku Bars

• Dog wipes

• Dog shampoo

• Snufflemat

• Doggy First Aid Kit

• Shot Records

• Fi Base

• Poop Bag Holder

• Hiking Waist Pouch

• Five standard 6ft leashes

• Three large wire dog crates

• Queen size set of sheets and a blanket (used it to cover the couch)

I definitely recommend having your pets shot records and a first aid kit handy for any trip. I couldn't guarantee that I'd be able to get ahold of their vets if I needed shot records, so it was best to just have them with me. When we were hitting the trails, it would have been even better to have a mini first aid kit with me instead of the big one in the car, and an emergency dog carrying kit would be a great idea. It's one of my goals this year to be more prepared for emergencies while on adventures, especially since I tend to go out alone with the dogs.

I decided to go a bit overboard on the treats while I was up there. I knew I was asking a lot of all of the dogs, but Reaper and Kai especially. Kai has learned from Reaper that other people are scary. So trying to work them both through that while in a cabin in the mountains with my family came with the expectation that I become ultimate cookie pusher lady. It all worked out just fine. Reaper stuck to his ever popular hide-in-mom's-room move, and Kai went for the more bold approach of bark-at-them-until-they-ignore-me. The treats also came in handy when my sister and I took Grimm and Reaper out to do the Gatlinburg Trail in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. There was a lot to process between lots of dogs, crowds of people, and hoards to children, so having tasty treats to distract them was really helpful when we would pull off to the side of the trail to let those distractions pass.

There were a couple of other things I packed and probably could have used, but just didn't. I would have used the long leashes, but most of the trails explicitly said that dogs had to be on a 6ft leash. The Fi Base would have been worth hooking up if we were there for longer, if the wifi was better, or if we'd left the dogs alone for extended periods of time. His collar was fully charged before we left so it wasn't a necessity to have the base this time around since I was with him pretty much every hour of the day. I don't regret lugging the extra towels, shampoo, or wipes, because the last thing I wanted was a bunch of dirty dogs messing up a house that isn't mine. The same goes for the pooper scooper, which I would have used if the AirBnB didn't have one. Overall, I feel like all of the things I brought were solid choices.

Driving 12+ Hours With Dogs

Honestly, my only real complaint about the drive was Dog Dad having a bladder the size of a small child with the thirst level of a dehydrated camel. Our drive was supposed to be 12 hours. It ended up being over 14 hours each way because of the stops, which were mostly for him. Dog Dad and I obviously have very different travel styles. Now, I'm fully aware that there's a chance I'm going to sound like a psycho, but let me explain my "travel style" for this trip.

If I'm driving to get to a predetermined destination, like this case of driving to get to the cabin where my family was waiting, I'm full speed ahead. I drive with the goal to beat the GPS estimated arrival time. I only stop for absolute necessities, bathroom breaks while you're pumping gas, and food is probably coming straight from the gas station or whatever fast food chain is attached to said gas station. This is how I grew up traveling, and this is the style I'm most comfortable with. I hate getting on and off the highway, dealing with crowded gas stations, searching for restaurants or a drive-thru, just all of it. Each stop like that adds a minimum of 15 minutes, and in our case we ended up stopping just about every 2 hours, and for me that's excessive. For Dog Dad, he expects to just stop all willy-nilly, and we had several heated discussions along the way about how his breaks were "messing up my margins." We love each other, but we might work best as a multi-car road-trip type of family. And to be fair, he's also not sure he wants to put up with me driving another 12 hour trip, which I think is fair because I'm a self-proclaimed control freak.

As you can see, Grimm was really excited to go to Dog Dad's the night before.

When we left the next morning, Rudy and Yondu were more interested in figuring out

how they could ride in our laps up to Tennessee.

Now, if the idea is that I'm just road tripping around with no set goal or destination and I'm just wandering, all of those ideas can go out the window. If I don't have somewhere I need to be or expect to be at a predetermined time, there's nothing that has to be done or figured out aside from where we're sleeping that night. This is the kind of road trip adventure I'd really like to do one day with Dog Dad and the whole pack of pups. However, these are not the kinds of driving adventures I've gone on yet, so I don't really know how that would work out. Long term we're hoping to look into getting a small camper or to do a large van conversion so we can pick up and go whenever we want to. I'm excited for those trips.

The dogs were absolutely marvelous, I have no hesitations about taking them on another road trip any time. They were generally very quiet and calm, and they didn't really need much from us on the drive. We let them out 2-3 times each way, and that seemed to be plenty. I'm not a huge fan of letting them out at gas stations as a general rule. I just feel like they're overly crowded, noisy, too close to the highway, and most gas stations don't usually have a large grassy area for the dogs to explore. We did stop at a Loves on the way home that had a very small "dog park" (more of a dog run) but I appreciated that it was fenced in and gave the pups a chance to run around off-leash for a few minutes. Otherwise, we opted for rest stops along the way. The ones we stopped at had a lot of green space and we could easily avoid other dogs and people. I never formally trained any of the dogs to "wait" when the car door is open, but somehow they picked it up. It was really easy to get everyone out of the car. Dog Dad's pups went to his side of the car, and my guys came to me. Grimm and Reaper waited until I had both leashes in hand and stepped aside before they hopped out of the car to wreak havoc on the world.

I will say, I withheld food and water starting at about 9PM the night before the trip and we left around 4AM. I know withholding food and water can be controversial, however, it's something I generally feel comfortable doing. We also went into it with the understanding that towards the end of the trip we'd start giving them water, and throughout the trip they could get treats or a couple of bites of whatever fast food delicacy we picked up along the way. I've grown up doing trips with dogs like this, and it's yet to be an issue. Going this route was something I felt was necessary this time especially, as Yondu has a tendency to get car sick. His vet was great and gave us some medication for him and the combination of limiting what he was eating and drinking with the medication did the trick. If the trip had been more than 12 planned hours, I would have started making plans for how to feed and water everyone appropriately. Once we got to the cabin, the first thing I did was set up their food and water so they could have as much as they wanted. This is what works best for us, and I know it's not for everyone. If you have concerns or need advice regarding road tripping with your pets, I encourage you to talk to your trusted veterinarian to create a plan that you and your pets will be comfortable with.

Hopefully you made it through part one and are excited for part two next week!

Things To Look Forward To Next Time:

• Managing five dogs in an AirBnB

• Grimm and Reaper visiting their first National Park

• Adventuring down a snow slide

• Lessons I learned about myself and my dogs

Thanks for reading this tail, and hopefully many more!

Danielle & The Pack