Progressive just increased the limits it pays for veterinary care to $1,000 if your pet is injured in an accident while on the road. They will also pay a $1,000 pet benefit.

I suppose that provides me some comfort knowing that most of the time when I am traveling with Presley he is not wearing a seat belt. I have one of those harness things that works with the seat belt and even though he doesn’t like it I need to use it more often.

I have always envisioned traveling south as far as I can get - the tip of South America. What a journey that would be! Recently however, I am having second thoughts.

It seems the world’s largest snake has turned up in the Colombian jungle. This guy or girl (actually, it must be a thing like a swamp monster) is more than twice as long as our Sprinter and weighs about 1/3 the weight.

What would I do, camping, having cocktails (but of course, mon ami!) when suddenly, “Honey, have you seen Presley (the dog)? And from the bush comes the hideous sound of a snake burping (do they?).

It seems this snake was or is 42 feet long and weighs 2,500 pounds! Listen, you don’t weigh that much from just eating frogs!

Having spent time in travel trailers, Class A’s, Class B’s and many Eurovans I knew that storage for a extended trip would be a challenge. Not the everyday things like dishes and food but clothes, toiletries, and nice to have things like a hammer, duct tape, rope, chairs, etc.

That is why when we built the Sprinter we added a “back porch.” We carry extra things in coolers as their size prevents you from overloading them and with their built in handles, they are easy to load and unload. One cooler is full of camping gear, citronella candles, a rubber mallet, extension cord, etc. and the other we use for ice and things we want cold like water, juice, etc. That also provides a back up ice source for cocktail time!

We also put a drain in which drains directly to the ground just in case we need an emergency place to shower. I tell people I use it after fording rivers to drain the water out of the bus. We don’t anticipate every using it but it is there just in case.

The last thing we load between the chairs and the door is our mat that goes outside the sliding door when we are camped.

Presley stays in his crate when we are away from the bus. He gets a lot less excited there and doesn’t set off the alarm.

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Check out http://dogfriendly.com/ . They have some great books that will help find camping/hiking/RV parks that are dog friendly. They also show the dog regulations in many federal, state and local campgrounds.

This one looks good!

I ordered California and the West Dog Travel Guide, 790 pages of small type with almost every city and park listed. It will be invaluable in planning our summer trip to Glacier National Park.

They somehow cover every state at DogFriendly.com with lots of information you will find helpful. Books are reasonable, ship very quickly and there is online information also.

We were to be off to Santa Barbara this weekend but the fire there gave me second thoughts. Montecito, Santa Barbara, Goleta make one large city and we have been through fires there so we decided to stay home. We do need to get down there though as we lived there for many years and want to check out the changes. Wonder if Rock n Roll Sushi is still there?

The weather here is great – very warm with roses still blooming while the leaves fall. Really great weather to wash the Sprinter so this week, I promise!

I spend a lot of time with the dog (like he gives you a choice) - we’re doing some agility training now. He loves to ride in the bus. I sent off for one of those doggie DNA tests. On the web you can find them from $50 on up depending on how many breeds they test for. So, in the next month or so, we’ll know exactly, “what kind of dog is that?”.