Since
A Year of Centuries is all about cycling, I have to share a story about bicycle
racing and greyhounds. Several years
ago, Robert and his cycling teammates headed to Rome, Georgia for a
weekend of racing. I thought it would be
fun to tag along, especially because it was Robert’s birthday. Also, it was a good venue for some greyhound
meeting & greeting, and so Cosmo and Mr. Spock joined the party.
The
team set up a few pop-up tents as a base location during the races. I think Robert’s teammates liked having the
greyhounds hang out with them during their downtime. As is typical, the guys did a lot of sitting
when they weren’t racing, trying to conserve their energy. It occurred to us that cyclists and
greyhounds are similar in that way: they’re either vegging out or racing like
the wind.
Our
adventures weren’t limited to the races.
The motel where we stayed offered plenty of excitement, too. We stayed at the Howard Johnson, the only
motel I could find in Rome that accepted dogs over 20 lb., at least according
to the Internet. When we were checking
in, however, we noticed a sign behind the counter that read “No Pets.” Oops.
So, we snuck the greyhounds in and out of our room all weekend. Besides, we couldn’t have been much more
conspicuous than the groups of blue hairs on tour buses and apparent escaped
convicts that made up the rest of the motel’s clientele while we were there.
At
about 3:30 A.M. Friday night, Cosmo awakened me – I kid you not! – by tapping
me with his paw. I got out of bed and
saw him standing by the door, and so of course I assumed he needed to go
out. Robert had taken the greyhounds’
collars off of them because the jingling of their tags was keeping him
awake. I was feeling around in the dark
for their collars. Robert wasn’t
sleeping much anyway, and he whispered to me where the collars were, trying not
to disturb his teammate Jake and his wife Kristy, who were sharing a room with
us. Fortunately, I had the presence of
mind to get the room key off of the table as I headed out with both greyhounds. I went out just as I was, wearing a long,
pink nightshirt. It had two cartoon
ducks on it, one carrying the other, and the caption “Seducktion.” The greyhounds did their business, and we
went back to the room. When we got to
the door, I realized that I hadn’t grabbed the room key; I had Jake’s credit
card! So there I was at 3:30 A.M. in my
pink Seducktion nightshirt, locked out of the room, holding a couple of
contraband greyhounds, and laughing my butt off! I tapped on the door gently, and Robert let
me in. Jake and Kristy told us the next
morning that they didn’t hear a thing.
Cosmo
didn’t try to get on the motel beds, being content to lie on the
floor:
Mr.
Spock, however, enjoyed getting on the people beds, something he’s not allowed
to do at home:
Mr.
Spock even spent Saturday night between Robert’s and my feet. All of us were pretty worn out on Saturday
night and didn’t have any trouble sleeping – until a fight broke out among the
escaped convicts right outside our door at about 1:30 A.M. (We assumed it was the escaped convicts and
not the blue hairs.) They were screaming
and kicking doors. Jake peeked through
the curtain and saw some guy fly out the door of the room next to us, through the
air, and onto a car hood. We were afraid
that knives or guns were involved. We
were debating whether to call management or go straight to 911. Then we heard the motel manager trying to
break it up. I guess no one was killed,
but it was frightening. Cosmo was
scared, too. The next morning, Jake and
Kristy said he crawled in bed with them for the rest of the night. Jake said he just snuggled up next to Cosmo
and went back to sleep.
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