Adventures with Moby

When I started writing this post over a year ago, I meant it to be a simple and fun peek into some dog-friendly destinations to take your best buddy cross-country. My husband Justin, our dog Moby, and I enjoyed annual holiday road trips between Baltimore and Minneapolis for years and we had collected a good number of favorite spots to stop, stretch, and explore. Not to mention the fun discoveries we had made camping up north or along the eastern seaboard driving from Baltimore to central Florida visiting grandma on her horse farm! We had lots of goods to share.

Roadtrip Nostalgia

I've always had a soft spot for roadtripping. Much of my own childhood adventures happened in a minivan trekking all across the continental US. And while I'm sure it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows --

(I remember one spring trip in particular when our minivan broke down and we got stranded

in Georgia for over a week. The pool was -of course- under construction, but we made our beds into forts and my mom left chocolates in the ice bucket from the Easter bunny and while my parents panicked about whether to replace a transmission or buy a new van, neither of which they could afford, my sisters and I were frolicking around the mostly empty Super 8 Motel like we owned the place eating cheesy grits for breakfast and jumping on the beds til our legs gave out.)

-- my memories of those trips are some of my fondest from childhood. So maybe its no surprise that as an adult our roadtrips back home to Minnesota cranking Mumford & Sons as we drove west through the night were also some of the best times of my life.

Now that we've moved back to Minneapolis and had two kids, our life-affirming roadtrips are less frequent. The tickle of nostalgia was getting to me... telling me to share a story for you all to enjoy with ideas for your own memorable interstate adventures. Maybe then I could vicariously soak up some thrills all while sitting on my couch at home snuggling my Mobes and playing with my kids.

It was a sound plan. The problem was, while I was fiddling with ideas for how to format the best fur-baby-friendly-roadtripping-guide, Moby was getting sick. I didn't realize it, but one of the worst days of my life was fast approaching and any thoughts of writing would soon be the farthest thing from my mind.

The Happy Stuff

We adopted Moby when he was a tiny squish-faced little dude. He was timid and sweet with expressive white eyebrows and the softest nose you could ever imagine. He loved pizza crusts and demanded a rotating variety of delicious toppings in his bowl at meal time. His walks were all about the sniffs and he'd lead us along one of several preferred routes each day depending on his mood. Our red couch by the picture window was his favorite spot. There he would snuggle into the pillows and rest his chin gingerly on his paws, watching the world.

For the past 10 years, there have been few more comforting places to be than snuggled up with my Dobes (he had many nicknames -- as well as several original compositions putting his name into song).

When we moved to Baltimore, we didn't know anyone. Both Justin and I struggled at times feeling unsettled and homesick for the first few years we lived there. When we adopted Moby, our family began to take shape and I could feel our roots begin to deepen. Baltimore became our home and Moby became our family.

A few weeks after we brought him home, I tucked Mobes snug into a carry-on and we flew the 1,100 miles to Minnesota to introduce him to the family. At 3 months old, he was still growing so fast that he almost didn't fit in his carrier a week later on the flight back! Our Dobes was an expert traveler, although he was a tad notorious for getting carsick on short car rides. One memorable road trip took us all the way out to Tennessee to see the total solar eclipse. We camped in a random field with a whole crew of strangers, but Moby snuggled up between us like he always did and everything felt as it should.

The Not Happy Stuff

Last spring, Moby woke up with a cloudy eye and was having trouble seeing. We took him to the vet and for a few days it seemed like it might just be an infection we could treat with some antibiotic ointment. But his improvements didn't last. Over two short weeks he declined as we took him to specialists, ran tests, took scans. We went to appointment after appointment silently pleading for the universe to give us an answer that we could fix. Just let it be something treatable. But we didn't get what we wanted. Instead we learned that Moby had an aggressive cancer of the blood vessels called hemangiosarcoma. Days later, we lost our best friend.

The Remembering

Our lives turned upside-down after we said goodbye to Moby. Everything hurt and nothing helped. A year has passed and we still desperately miss him. The red couch that I once avoided for fear of getting my clothes caked in dog hair I now avoid because it's disturbingly clean.

We had planned to spend many more years as a family of five.

In the midst of all the grief and sadness, I am slowly finding the courage to spend some time in my memories. In doing so, the significance of Moby's presence in my life is bringing a simple but profound thought into focus.

Make space in your life to share your adventures.

Seeking out new experiences is not always convenient. Making room for others is not always simple. But when we make space in life to share something new, we invite the opportunity for a unique kind of bond to form. One that is rooted in vulnerability, exhilaration, and growth. We learn about each other, we have fun together, we see each other in a new light. There is a certain kind of magic in sharing a novel experience with someone you love - human and not human alike. The kind of magic that I still feel when I think about my Mobes.

Life can be cruel. We lose things we will never be ready to lose and all we are left with are memories. Allow yourself the opportunities to make them. Inconvenience yourself to bring along a buddy or make an extra stop along the way. Make the memory. You don't need a roadtrip guide for that (although I still plan to write one at some point when the time is right). The details of your adventures may fade, but the feeling you had with your companion will not. And that is something you get to keep forever.