pets – The Dragon's Grove

Dogs or cats?

I probably like cats more than dogs, as I primarily grew up with them, but I do like dogs as well.

The first cat I remember my family having was a female cat named Milo (I make the distinction because last year my Dad got a male puppy he named Milo) when I was growing up in Colorado. She was an indoor/outdoor cat, sweet and very independent. At some point we took in a kitten that was part of a litter that a friend’s mom had rescued. We named him Otis (as in The Adventures of Milo & Otis) but unfortunately he didn’t seem too bright. Where Milo had been with us for several years and was smart enough to always come back safely when she was let outside, Otis wasn’t with us very long as he never came back one day. We never learned what became of him.

Within the few years after my Mom passed away, my family had gotten two dogs, starting with the German Short Haired Pointer we named Greta (and my poor Grandma couldn’t get her name right, always calling her Gretchen). Then there was Sophie, who was very much another Otis. Very sweet, but not too bright.

Then there are the many dogs my Stepmom had rescued, and all the farm cats we had when we moved to South Dakota that became partly domesticated. All were named, but combined there were probably more than 30 over the years, and I don’t remember the majority of them (especially since we’ve had so many horses on top of all of that!)

I was originally going to keep this post short, but I couldn’t immediately decide one way or the other. I was then hoping that by the end of writing it I might reach a conclusive answer, but unfortunately I can’t pick one or the other. So, it’s both.

I don’t feel like writing an answer for today’s writing prompt, and some of you may have noticed that some of my posts throughout the week have been shorter. That’s because I’ve been traveling for the last seven days.

My travel partners (Dad and sister) and I made a trip to Colorado to visit family, and along the way we stopped at a few places and also took a lot of pictures.

One of the first places we took a teensy detour for was The Klown Museum. My Dad was not excited about that, because it’s honestly got that creepy vibe to it (sorry, Klown Museum.) He was hoping to avoid it, but he opened his mouth and just stream of thought mentioned it, which reminded my sister who got SO excited she began giggling and clapping her hands. She knew it made my Dad a little uncomfortable and since she was driving she got to make the call to drive by to get pics. We also stopped to look at this old barn with some crows or ravens on top.

F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming was incredible. So much history in those old buildings, and so many antelope! The place is practically a nature preserve for them. We also saw some pelicans on these little (I assume) artificial lakes/ponds. Naturally I tried to get some pictures. There was a coffee shop on base that my Dad and sister liked to go to, and unfortunately I was working remote this whole week so I didn’t go with them, but my sister sent me a pic of their specials board (I got the Heart Container, and it was pretty damn good!)

We stayed in Wrangler Bunkhouse for the weekend, and I made sure to get some pics of the inside.

After our brief stay on base (with a couple trips into Cheyenne proper for dinner/lunch and small necessities) we moved on to Colorado for a week with my step grandfather and his little zoo of domestic and wild animals. His dog, Chester is such a sweet boy and loved playing fetch with his tennis balls. His roommate’s cat, Baby didn’t like new people and hid from me all week (until maybe 30 minutes ago from writing this post when she warmed up to me and wanted my attention for some food.) The wild animals are a couple of outdoors cats that the neighborhood kind of collectively takes care of, as well as a squirrel that was a bit too brave and almost made it into the house a couple times (we learned that the roommate had been feeding it some mixed nuts, so of course it was comfortable with people.)

Anyways, here are a bunch of the pictures I took along the way. Happy Saturday everyone!