Austin, TX – Sept. 19, 2025
The Start
When we travel through our lives, we go through so many phases. I am about to have a BIG birthday, and I felt a huge shift in my priorities. I kept thinking back on my life at things I missed out on. I have worked at BHV for 25 years. I have only owned BHV for 5 years. I ran the south store as the only manager of 15 staff members for 20 years. BHV, at a capacity level, can have up to 70 dogs, sometimes more if there are a lot of families. As you can imagine, that didn’t leave me much time for myself. At the time, this didn’t matter much to me because I love what I do so much. The staff members, the dogs, the clients—all of it, good and bad. I felt like I belonged; I felt like all of the clients knew how much I loved their dogs, and that alone gave me value. What gave me the most value was the connection I felt to so many of the dogs I have cared for. For the most part, people have been so kind to me.
So that preface brings me here. My time. MY time. I needed to own it again and bring it back to myself. I haven’t had much of it. I have spent my life taking care things for a lot of people and pets, but I have put off living my life a bit. SO I got it in my head I wanted to do an RV trip. I have never driven an RV, slept in an RV, or lived in an RV. On this trip I would bring one of my youngest dogs (Mooshu), and my oldest dog (Lanna B). Mooshu is very hesitant, he really hasn’t had to be on his own because he always has a leader in my dog ZuZu to tell him what to do. Lanna B is an old pro at 16. I have only had her 7 of those 16 years, but she is my constant companion and she has been around the block.
Now, for me to take this time, which has turned out to be 3 weeks, I have had to massively organize my life. I have to organize my other 5 dogs and 3 cats, and well… a bunch of other critters. Next, I had to organize schedules for two stores and about 25 employees. Along with keeping up with their day to day at both BHVs to make sure to mitigate any issues they may be having. Finally, I organized a 17-stop RV trip that spans across the Gulf coast, up the East coast, and all the way to Maine and back. This also includes 15 RV Resort reservations and 2 hotel reservations. My goal is to update this blog almost daily and include three pics of each stop that sum up my day that day. Sum up how I felt, and sum up the locations we are visiting. If you are interested, follow along!
