Final Preparations

For quite a while, Debbie had been mostly disengaged from the actual trip preparations. My best guess is that this was partially due to a misguided notion that I had things under control, and also probably because she was focused on the Maine end of things.

It’s difficult to renovate a house from thousands of miles away. Fortunately, we had in Hervochon Construction, people who were extremely competent and totally trustworthy, and that made things easier. But I don’t think they, or anyone else we were dealing with there, fully understood the “family” that we were bringing with us, and the accommodations that had to be designed for them.

The dog door was a significant challenge, and then we still had to plan the outside area that the dogs would use when they went through it. A ramp had to be designed to lead there, at an angle that our old, arthritic dogs could manage. And it had to be made of a material that they wouldn’t find too slippery in the winter, since we were told they actually had winters in Maine.

Gates needed to be installed on the front porch and rear decks; if the dogs got through an open door, we had to be sure they couldn’t run out into the wilderness.

The furniture was another significant issue. Most of our California furniture had been trashed over the years by the dogs, so we had to get new stuff. Debbie used a local store in Maine, Parker Interiors, whose owner, Carolyn Parker, served as a decorator as well.

Debbie spent what seemed like endless hours going over patterns for the chairs and sofas, until finally I had to tell her that none of the material was ever going to be seen. It would all be obscured by slipcovers and sheets to protect it from the dogs; we could do the room in bright red polka dots, and no one would know the difference.

Still, Debbie mostly picked out things that would be nice if ever seen, until we got to the coffee table. We were going to bring our beat-up table with us from California, and Carolyn tried to talk us out of it. Finally, we convinced her by showing her a picture of the table, with Wanda the mastiff and Bernie the Bernese mountain dog sitting on it. There is almost never a time when that table doesn’t have a dog on it.

Most important, of course, was that the house be ready when we arrived. We were finding out that there is a different mind-set in Maine than in California; people there are far more mellow and less stressed. Deadlines don’t matter quite as much, and people are therefore more flexible and unapologetic about it.

Chris McKenney, our contractor in Maine, called one day to find out if we knew exactly when we’d arrive. This was not a good sign; the house was supposed to be ready for us without question, and now it seemed he was trying to figure out if he had a few extra hours or minutes.

When I expressed concern, he assured me that everything would definitely be ready, “except for a few things.” He said that it was nothing that would affect our being able to live there. A counter wouldn’t be installed in the laundry room, the exhaust hood wouldn’t be above the range, and the mantel wouldn’t yet be over the fireplace.

None of that was a big deal, but I wasn’t pleased about the mantel, because it’s six hundred pounds and would take a number of people to install. With our dogs, the prospect of having a houseful of workmen was not at all pleasing. “Why won’t the mantel be there?” I asked, since it had been ordered a long time before.

“The mantel guy is moose hunting.”

I’d already learned that this is how people in Maine talk; they tell you the truth, without hesitation and without apparent embarrassment. In California, they would have fabricated a more legitimate-sounding excuse.

For instance, they might have said, “The stone is coming from Italy, and the craftsmen there took longer to cut it. They’re perfectionists, and they’ll never change. But believe me, you’ll be glad they spent the extra time when you see it.” They would say this even if the mantel was being cut in Burbank and looked like it was designed by Mickey Mantle.

Anyway, not to worry, Chris told me, everybody that comes into the house will be comfortable with dogs. And I supposed that was true, if they’re comfortable with moose. Or mooses. Or meese.

So Debbie was mostly focused on the Maine end until I took her to examine the RVs we were going to use. That seemed to provide a dose of reality; within two weeks we were going to be boarding these things and living on them for five days.

She started planning the menus for what food we would have onboard. That wasn’t great news for me, since she’s into eating healthy, while I’m just into eating. So where I would have preferred potato chips, she listed carrots. And my preference for chocolate chip cookies in her version became sugar snap peas. It was a clear difference in philosophy, but I wasn’t that worried, since I would be doing the grocery shopping.

She also created the lists of which people and which dogs were going to go into each RV, which I then checked over and edited. Debbie and I would split up; I would be on one of the two large RVs, and she would be on the other. We did it that way so that most of the dogs would have one of us with them, which we knew would keep them calmer.

Once assigned, the dogs would stay on the same RVs the entire trip. It would help us keep track of them; when we called out the roll after each stop, the same seven or nine dogs would bark “Here” on each vehicle.

We agreed that Debbie would put the youngest, most difficult-to-handle dogs on my vehicle, and the easiest on the vehicle that neither of us would be on. Our dogs have very unique relationships with each other, so we knew which ones to split up and which ones to pair together. More thought went into the seating plan for this trip than for most White House state dinners.

The distribution of the humans was easier, and it was based on willingness to drive and experience with a similar type of vehicle. We figured we might have to switch humans occasionally, depending on how tired individual people were, but we’d have flexibility. Not too many people knew each other, and we didn’t know everyone, so we didn’t let personality figure into our decisions.

We had four real men: Emmit Luther, Randy Miller, Joe Nigro, and Erik Kreider—five if you counted Erik’s son, Nick. Emmit and Erik were placed together, and Randy and Joe each went into one of the other vehicles. These were the guys who might have to switch RVs if necessary.

The plan was to drive straight through to Maine, no stopping to sleep. When people weren’t driving they could be sleeping or eating or showering or reading or petting or doing whatever they wanted.

We had other rules. Wine and beer were OK to have onboard, but no one would drink any of it within four hours of taking the wheel, and it would only be consumed near the rear of the vehicle. We would always have two people up front; one driving and the other in the passenger seat, making sure that the driver was fresh and awake.

If we got to a point where there weren’t six people alert enough to fill those roles, we would stop. No exceptions.

It was all very civilized.

We also went through a process of making sure all the dogs had their shots up-to-date and were taking heartworm medication. Our dogs had never taken heartworm medication before, because heartworm is not a problem in California, but it is to some degree in Maine. Unfortunately, before dogs can take the medication, they must have a blood test to make sure they don’t already have the disease. If a dog that already has heartworm takes a heartworm preventative, it will likely be fatal.

So I had to transport twenty-five dogs to the vet, in shifts, to get their blood tests and shots. Trust me when I tell you that it is not a fun process. But by the time I was finished, we had all the paperwork and documents that we could possibly need if stopped by local authorities anywhere. There were no federal laws governing our situation, so we overprepared in case certain states were set up to be difficult.

Finally we were ready. Or maybe not—I had absolutely no idea. The vehicles were huge, and not a single person on the trip had ever driven one. The dogs were great, but how were they going to handle five days on an RV, driving nonstop and surrounded mostly by strangers? The volunteers were enthusiastic; would they stay that way?

For myself, I just wished it were over. Personal comfort is actually not that important to me; I generally don’t need to stay in top hotels or fly first class or any of that stuff. But what I do care about is avoiding severe discomfort, and there promised to be a bunch of that on the trip.

E-mails among the group were being exchanged regularly. They were talking about what DVDs they planned to watch, what food they were going to eat, and even what our theme song for the trip should be. I decided that if they started holding hands and singing “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore,” I was going to jump off the RV and head for the airport.

But the overriding view of everyone was that it was going to be a great adventure, successful and a hell of a lot of fun.

Except for me.

I was expecting a disaster.