Monday, July 6, 2009

Irish Setter Club of America National Specialty 2009










Rich and I are home from the 2009 ISCA National Specialty. We drove to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Over the course of 12 days we traveled 5700 miles and saw 20 states. OH MY GOSH - we had a BLAST!!! We traded off driving every 3 to 5 hours. It was great!

We had rented a Toyota Sienna minivan. Driving there, we could see out the back of the van. However, on the way home - the back part of the van kept getting fuller and fuller!

Our plans did not originally include driving to Atlanta, Georgia - but we did end up there staying with Tammy and Duane Sasso. Boy was it nice to stay in a real bed in a real house after staying in hotel after hotel. Drew and Monet emptied the Sasso's dogs toy basket with in minutes. Thanks to the Sasso's for their hospitality.

From there we headed for Texas to see my brother, his wife, Paige, and surprise my mom. We looped Monet's leash over mom's front door knob, knocked and hid. Once the door was opened Monet walked right in and stood up on my step father. It was really funny. She knew who he was but he did not recognize her immediately. He expected her to be in California! My brother took me to his new property - 12 acres north of Dallas. We took those show dogs out in the "country" for some down home romping. The only one that ended up with a tick was me....... We took 100s of landscape photos for my paintings.

As always, it was so much fun to the show the dogs. Drew placed 4th in his 12 - 18 month old dog class - quite a thrill to receive a placement at the National! Monet showed well, did a little running off of her exuberance. She had fun and she had me in stitches in the ring. She is such a happy dog!

It was wonderful visiting with everyone at the National. I never imagined my art would become such a blessing to us - we've met so many fabulous people as a result of my artwork. We can't thank people enough for coming to our booth to visit with us. It is so heartwarming to be able to see people in person that normally are communicating with me via email or the telephone. Thanks to the show staff that put all the work into the show - it was awesome.

We came home, bought a Toyota Sienna and are looking forward to our next road trip!