Owning a travel trailer has long been a dream of my husband’s and last weekend he finally turned it into reality. We hoofed it down to Los Banos, California to pick up his new baby in a whirlwind trip that was mostly driving and very little fun.
This was the dogs’ first long road trip – they’d take trips a few hours long before but never anything like this. We usually keep them in crates in the back while driving, but since it was going to be such a long trip we decided to move them to the back seat. We bought them special doggy seat belts (one double seat belt and two individual ones) for safety and they settled in nicely:
On the way down we stayed one night at a Motel 6 in Springfield, Oregon (it was horrible, I do not recommend). While the motel was pretty gross – we slept in sleeping bags on top of the bed gross – it was cheap and didn’t charge any extra fees for our dogs. We suffered through it and was back on the road early the next morning.
Unfortunately we were not able to take the time to stop and do anything fun, we needed to get back for work on Monday, but we did get to try the new trailer out once on the way back home to Seattle! We stopped about half way just north of Medford, Oregon at a campground called Valley of the Rogue. It’s set just off the highway next to Rogue River.
Here’s our new home away from home, affectionately named “Trailer Swift”:
We didn’t yet have the trailer outfitted with much, so the dogs were forced to sleep on the floor:
Until we turned the dinette set into a small bed (designed to fit two dogs or maybe one small child). Ranger wasn’t into it but Grizzly slept up there for a long time:
The Valley of the Rogue campground wasn’t too special – mostly a functional stop on a long road trip, not really the type of place you bring the family for 4th of July weekend. It had showers and bathrooms (locked, though, and we arrived too late to get the passcode), and spots for both tents and all sizes of RVs and trailers. It had a nice paved path along the river we walked the dogs on:
What the campground had that I was really excited about, something I have never seen before at a campground, was a fenced “dog exercise” area:
It was really nice to be able to let the dogs stretch their legs off leash after so much driving. They even met a friend there!
We’re already planning some real trips so I’ll be excited to share more dog-friendly camping trips in the future.
aussiedoodleadventures.com 