We barely got out of New Jersey before exhaustion overtook us. The Motel in Wilmington, Delaware was pretty open minded about dogs, but Golf was not leaving the back seat. The next morning he came out to relieve himself but immediately dashed back to the back seat floor. It was a nice drive, across the top of Maryland, through DC, down across the top of Virginia. It was just getting dusky when we reached Tennessee. We stopped at a really nice border rest stop with tourist information and visitor's center and a huge green lawn, probably a 200 yard strip before the tree line. The visitors center was well lit and had a big plate glass front. MamaCharlie took the Hypoborean Wanderer into the visitor's center to look around and use the facilities. I stayed behind to stretch and try to coax the dog out, he had not come out since morning.
At first he just looked guilty at me, he really hated to be disobedient...but his whole world had been turned upside down lately and after all, I was the one who put him IN the cage in the first place. It took a little while, but I got him to step out of the car. Then something clicked...I think it was the grass and trees...or maybe being cooped in the back seat all day...or both. His ears picked up and he lit out like a shot. He ran and ran and ran...to the trees and back, back and forth along the tree line...after a couple minutes of his silly bounding trot, he bent down to it and took off in his low down, ears flat, freight train mode and flew all around the clearing. Then he started marking, stop, pee, run run run, stop. pee, run some more. At one point coming down the slight hill beside the visitor's center, he saw the Wanderer and MamaCharlie inside. He broke hard left and closed on them fast. Now Golf was a German Shepherd...that is to say...a GERMAN German Shepherd...he had never in his life seen a glass fronted building. He was at full stride when he ran into the glass. MamaCharlie was inside, she said the whole building shook with the impact. There was an older guy, an attendant, sitting at the info desk reading a magazine. He lowered the magazine, glanced at the dog, and went back to his reading. Have you seen the cartoons where the character runs into a wall and sort of collapses into a puddle and slides down the wall. That is exactly what Golf did. I ran to see if my dog was dead but before I could get to him, he stood up, took off like a streak and jumped into the open window of the car and curled into a ball on the back floor board. He wouldn't get out of the car until we got to Little Rock, the next night.