Roger and the Vacation

Hello, all! We made it back from our vacation in one piece, no one was hurt and we didn't even end up killing each other.
The cabin was great. It was rustic (I could hear a nest of hungry baby birds in the eaves and something crawled in the walls after dark in my bedroom) but big enough for all of us. The view was absolutely breathtaking. We were up Mount Tabby, which is near Tabiona Springs in the Uintah Basin (about 7000 -- 8000 ft. altitude), and the cabin was situated in such a way that you could walk out on the deck and "see the whole world," as Child Five put it. We were surrounded by mountain desert plants and animals. It was so quiet -- no airplanes, cars, sirens, anything -- and that alone was amazing. I sat on the deck and just was for a while.
We did a little driving around, but there are only small towns out there. Duchesne (pronounced "Doo-shayne' " for all you non-Utahns) had an actual grocery store where we bought some bug juice for the kids. Roosevelt is a little bigger. It has some restaurants and a couple small movie theaters, but the kids found the drive a little tiring, especially Child Six, who hates his car seat. Child Three, whose turn it is to sit in the favored van seat, had a job keeping him occupied and happy. She did a great job. Husband felt she should be rewarded and bought her a little treat just for herself.
The scenery, though, was fantastic. I have been spoiled by living in the green North, but I did live in Southern Idaho for some years and I felt a forgotten love for the sagebrush and scrub plants, the big chunks of rocks and red-brown dirt. The valley where Tabiona is situated (town motto: if you blink you'll miss us) is green and lush, full of fields of hay and horses. There is one gas station with one pump, and that building is also the grocery store (four shelves), hotel and cafe. There is also a post office where people put up all kinds of notices because everyone collects their mail there. I saw a poster hailing the arrival of a baby girl that invited everyone in the town to the baby shower.
For the most part, we hung out at the cabin. Although there was no open place for the kids to play outside, except the deck, the cabin had a great kitchen, a loft with plenty of sleeping space, a living room, lots of board games and satellite TV. Husband and I refuse to pay for cable or satellite at home (what a waste of money for mostly junk), but we enjoyed watching some shows together up there. I have a real weakness for HGTV and the Food Network, myself, and the kids watched a couple hours of Spongebob one day. (We'd already seen them all, though.) We took walks up and down the road and saw some chipmunks, rabbits and deer. We listened to the woodpeckers tapping messages to each other across the mountainside. We met a couple of the other people who happened to be up at their cabins.
One of the ways we met some of these people is because we were found by a little lost puppy. Well, I say "little," but he was pretty big, about four or five months old. He came bounding up on the deck on Wednesday. He must have heard the kids talking out there. They came running in with the news and we all went outside to meet him. He was obviously a hunting dog, maybe Irish Setter, white with chocolate brown spots and floppy ears, 40 pounds of wriggling, tail-wagging, lick-your-face enthusiasm. He had no collar but he wasn't starving so we figured he must have slipped his leash only recently and gone on an adventure. We asked at whatever cabins and homes up and down the mountain where there were people, but no one owned him or could tell us who did. Meanwhile, we made the fatal mistake of naming him and falling in love with him. We named him Roger (from the book My Family and Other Animals, coincidentally) and the kids played with him constantly. He loved them and the attention until, being still a puppy, he flopped down and fell alseep as hard as a dog can.
The first night we put him in the garage because we were afraid he would run off and get lost again. He scratched and whined half the night and was so excited to see the kids in the morning that he must have licked every inch of exposed flesh on each of them. By the next night we figured he wouldn't run off, so he slept on the porch. I went out to say goodnight to him and I could tell he was a little scared being by himself. He scootched up onto my lap, lay his head on my leg, sighed with contentment and fell asleep. I hated to go back inside but we couldn't let him into the cabin. For one thing, we didn't know what he would chew on and it wasn't our cabin. For another, Child Five is allergic to dogs. He played with Roger but didn't touch him, and maybe it was because Roger was outside all the time or that he had very short hair, but Child Five never started wheezing or having his eyes swell up like he usually does. That was a blessing.
Still, the problem remained: what would we do with Roger if we couldn't find his owner? We went down on Thursday and put up "Found Dog" notices at the post office and the Sagebrush Cafe, but no one responded to them. By Friday, we were making plans of where he could live when we got back home. We couldn't keep him with Five's allergies (and the fact that we have very little backyard) but none of us could bear the thought of putting him in the animal shelter. Child Two made a plan to get my sister, who loves animals and already has three dogs and a cat, to fall in love with him and keep him. We thought of others who might take him temporarily until we could find him a permanent home. And through all of this we said several family prayers that we would find Roger's owner or find him a loving home before we left.
Friday morning we packed up and cleaned the cabin. Roger happily sat on Two's lap on the way down the mountain into Tabiona, where we decided to make one last stop at the post office and Sagebrush Cafe to see if anyone had asked about the dog. At the Sagebrush, a woman named Kitty was running the cafe and store, and when I asked her if anyone had asked for the dog, she said no. I sighed and told her we would have to take Roger back home with us because we couldn't find his owner. "I could keep him," she said with a smile. "My kids have been begging me for another dog. Let me call my mom to come and get him." She called her mom and then came out with me to the car ("I'll be back in a couple minutes," she told the two men sitting at the counter drinking coffee). I dragged Roger out of the back seat because he wasn't interested at all in losing his warm lap to nap on. "Oh," said Kitty when she saw him. "I think I know who you belong to, puppy." To me she said, "His owner is in and out of the hospital all the time and he loves to have a dog, but I've told him he can't take care of a pet when he's not there half the time. I'll take him home. I think I'll just tell his owner I'm keeping him."
I told the kids to come out and say goodbye to Roger. Two's face was so sad I nearly cried, but I was so happy Roger was going to a good home where kids would play with him and he'd have a field to run in. We all said goodbye and I thanked Kitty profusely. Then we drove out to US 40 and home.
On the way, Husband reminded the children that we had prayed Roger would find a good home before we left. He reminded them that it wasn't until the very last moment that we found someone to take Roger. Sometimes Heavenly Father tests us to see if we will do all we can do or keep having faith that we will find an answer. Sometimes the answer doesn't come until later, or until the last minute, as in our case. The point is, we have to keep being faithful in our efforts and keep believing that Heavenly Father hears our prayers and is mindful of us, dog and human alike.

Husband and Child Five in the living
room, setting up the Wii. Husband bought
Indiana Jones Lego for Five's birthday, because
Five turned four on Thursday.


On the way home we stopped at a
reservoir to swim. Children Two, Five
Oldest and Three constructed a mud
pie and a moat.