Skyway which takes you right into downtown Chicago. We sailed through the Edens, then hit the Kennedy. Now you would think there wouldn’t be much traffic going into a big city at 7:00 pm, but you would be wrong. We crawled through Chicago as the sun set. William did get a nice long look at the Chicago skyline. It is a beautiful skyline, but we probably didn’t need a full hour of viewing pleasure. By the time we got to Indiana it was clear that we wouldn’t make the Fremont exit until almost midnight – too late for Jonathan to meet us, so we decided to make that our night’s stop and meet Jonathan in the morning. To William’s credit he saved his own story about making his plane reservation for the wrong day for this part of the journey. He was driving with me now, and the rest didn’t matter. As we left Toledo, we kept seeing signs that said exit 91 would be closed at 11:00 pm. due to road construc- tion. Surely that was not our exit, we foolishly thought. We would not reach that exit until about 11:30. Except it was, and the next exit was 22 miles down the road. We had to go back. I needed my shears! As we pulled into the hotel an hour after passing the closed exit, our next disaster was about to unfold. We smelled a lot of diesel, and the engine was smoking, but otherwise sounding fine No idiot lights, no bad noises. I parked it, and we checked in for a 5-hour nap. I called Jonathan as soon as we woke up, and told him about our new issue. He said he’d be right over with the shears, and that would give him some time to think about what our next move would be. As we ate breakfast at the hotel Jonathan decided we should take a quick trip over to his truck mechanic to diagnose the problem. We also formu- lated Plan B, which was to rent a cargo van and unload ALL of the equipment and supplies from my show van into the cargo van. We had promised 4 other people that we would come fully supplied with equipment they did not need to fly. I didn’t realize that William nearly fainted as he took mental note of everything that was in the show van that would need to be transferred to a cargo van. He’s such a trooper! He didn’t say a word about his full blown panic attack. Dale, the mechanic fairly quickly diagnosed our prob- lem – a rotting fuel return line. If we were lucky, he could replace one section and get us on our way in an hour. We were not lucky. This was the part my mechan- ic had ordered two days ago as he wished us good luck. Dale replaced one section, and another exploded. All six sections would need replacing. And there was a diesel- soaked air seal that he could not get a replacement for until the next day. At 3:00 pm we were back on the road with another, “Good luck!” from a mechanic. It took us about an hour to realize what a faulty air seal would cause. The diesel engine would not have a functioning turbo. In layman’s language, that meant we drove through the Pennsylvania mountains going uphill at 45 Becoming: Adventures of AMontgomery Week
BY JACQUELYN FOGEL continued
miles/hour, and downhill at 75 miles/hour. But we didn’t have to resort to Plan B! William was grateful for that. I had reserved grooming for the Hatboro shows, so our late night arrival in Horsham, PA would be fine. We called the 4 people who would be waiting for us, and told them we’d definitely be there in the morning, and they assured us that we did have a reserved space. We showed, and lost with every dog on our truck. This gave us plenty of time to find a dealer to replace the air intake seal on the van! It was a great day to lose, and we took full advantage of it. While waiting at the repair dealer, William and I spotted a wonderful Class C RV on a Mercedes chassis that we needed to explore. I dragged all six of us out to the RV dealer to take a look at newer versions of this RV. I sent a text to Darling Husband, and he said, “Go for it!” I was a little shocked because this is the same person who yells at me with, “Where’s the money for that coming from!”, when I want to hire somebody besides him to trim our 5-acre home and 11- acre kennel lawns. I don’t know where $107,000 for a new RV is coming from if we can’t afford $100/week for a lawn service, but. I am not a finance guy like he is. I think it’s magical. Now I’d like to address the board members of the Hatboro Dog Club with an open letter from exhibitors and vendors: To All Whom This Concerns: We loved your show sight. Of the three sites we show at on this Montgomery County weekend, yours has always been the best, and we have long wished the other clubs would join you. We knew that was a long shot, but we con- tinued to press for that change anyway. Then, last year, you introduced us to a new and even more wonderful site! The Lehigh Valley site at Macungie County fairgrounds, and we were instantly in love! It is a beautiful sight with big tents, rings in one place, trees, plenty of parking, indoor plumbing, good restaurants within driving distance, and a veterinary hospital adjacent to the grounds! In addition, we heard that if you stayed at this site, there was a possibility that Devon KC would join you. Three shows on the same site would be like Nirvana for us! Many of us told you how much we loved this site. We assured you that none of us cared that it was not in Buck’s County, because, quite frankly, we didn’t even know that your current site is in Bucks County. We love this site regardless of the county it’s in. We know you are trying to make things work better at your shows, and we really appreciate your efforts. The rings this year were not as manicured as we would have liked them to be. The grass was long, and the ground was uneven. I nearly fell over my dogs a few times, and thought the basset might get lost in an especially deep dip. There are no trees in the area we are now in, so the heat or rain becomes unbearable. While we love your wonderful grounds crew, we found that the reserved spaces were so small they often did not account for the exhausting of generators into our neigh-
184 • S HOW S IGHT M AGAZINE , N OVEMBER 2017
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