Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Southern Gathering 2009

Last weekend Reilly and I drove to Asheville to meet up with some of our fabulous Canine-L friends. It was a nice mix of people- some were old friends we'd met before and some were new - we know them from the list but had never met them in person.

Reilly and I decided to drive up Sat instead of Friday night, so we got up VERY early Saturday morning and headed up the road. We hit Asheville about 9:30 - just in time for Reilly to try his CGC test. Unfortunately the stars did not align and we didn't pass. But that's ok. We know what we have to work on and he was a good sport for trying so hard.

Then we went into Asheville and met up with a HS friend that I had reconnected with on FB. That was a nice hour spent outside catching up with promises to get back together again soon.

Finally we were on our way to the little community center in Fairview that was SO kind to let us use their facility and bring the dogs in. We were afraid the weather might be bad, so we wanted a place that had some shelter. The weather turned out to be absolutely beautiful though! We could not have asked for prettier weather.

We met some great people and dogs. One dog, an Irish Wolfhound*( Dancer) just stole my heart. She was a sweetie and so calm for a 14 month old puppy. I wanted to sneak her in the car.

The collies were there, along with Cooper and a little Corgi. Reilly kept pretty much to himself- by my side and if I wasn't available, he made straight for our friend Tim.

We had some great meals cooked by our friend Edie - and were all stuffed by the time we had to leave. But Reilly and I were exhausted and happy to get back to the hotel to crash.

After a nice shower, we got ready for bed. Now the one thing I could not figure out was WHY a dog friendly hotel had WHITE( nice) linens for the bed. I, unfortunately forgot to take a sheet for Reilly to sleep on, so we had to carefully remove all his hair the next morning. But WHITE? REALLY??

The next morning, we had breakfast at our favorite restaurant in Hendersonville NC - and then off home. It was a great weekend! The weather was beautiful and Reilly was so well behaved - and well you couldn't ask for better company!