It was a long, challenging and of so educational journey and we’re flying back now. I think a couple months solid 6 days a week lessons with journal notes everyday is enough to give anyone overload. Now it’s time to apply the education! Picollo and I fly back today while Carrara will stay in training for a couple more weeks then fly back. Because she was away from the states for more than 60 days she’ll have to do CEM (2ndary quarantine) for up to 21 days stateside. Luckily for me there’s a CEM facility in Southern Pines, NC which is about 3.5 hours from our stable.
Picollo is a seasoned international traveler! The last time (before our arrival) he was in AMS Schipol, he wasn’t paralyzed. This time he’s a great little cart doxy. I love that you can bring dogs into cafés here, even sitting them on the table and people don’t freak out! So awesome!
Because Carrara flew over biz class, we were supposed to be on standby for a biz class return meaning Picollo and I would get a biz class seat instead of riding in the “back of the bus” like we did coming over as groom for Carrara. Our first flight we got bumped off of so we had to find a hotel nearby and this flight we almost didn’t get on as it was 100% booked but 1 person didn’t show and we got his/her seat! Close call! We were in a middle seat in coach but we were on the plane and it was exciting to be going home!! We had to wait for everyone to de-plane as Picollo’s extra crate was in the back of the cabin so we just stood by the flight attendants. They started talking to him and (OF COURSE!) he started barking back. They just thought it was too funny that they would say “Bu-bye” to the passengers and Picollo would give a sharp “Bu-woof” to them. I’m not quite sure how the passengers felt about it but it was pretty cute for a while at least! Here’s Picollo at his “Bu-bark” location.
So because I was on standby, I didn’t want to book a flight that we’d miss nor a car hire that we’d be late for so I showed up at JFK with no solid plans on how to get to Gattis Manor in VA where my Jeep and horse box were. A bit of wandering and thinking with 2 LARGE rollers, 1 hard sided doggie crate, 1 soft sided doggie crate, one laptop backpack, one spunky doxy and my tired self and I opted to phone the car hire to get rates/reservation. I’ll drive to Northern VA as truly the thought of checking bags again and buying the ticket for Picollo plus going through this paperwork inspection was just not appealing. I hired a car, got it all packed, put in my address for the GPS and was off. Mind you at this point I’ve been traveling for 13 hours so I’m a bit loopy and I was blindly following my trusty tomtom GPS until I realized I was crossing a bridge and winding around by the Hudson River! Oh crap! I was heading for Manhattan. Oops! So here’s my tour of Manhattan…
Okey! The tour of Manhattan was old fast and I quickly proceeded to figure out how in the heck to get outta there and on the road to Brent’s in NoVA!