We are in Nashville, Tennessee!

Tuesday morning we loaded up the car and hit the road to the East side of the country.

Bella and Kronos stayed home with their uncle. Kronos is still working up to learning how to behave in small spaces and close encounters like BlogPaws with all the animals and stimulation. Since he’s still pretty shy with new people, it’s an event that would be too much for him right now at his current level of training. We have a few events planned with our ACD friends coming up in the next few months and their dogs which will help him learn and develop some more social skills. Bella has been limping a little bit lately so she stayed home to take it easy-we’re waiting to hear back on some results from the vet to see if it’s arthritis or something more serious like valley fever or potentially cancer. Her littermate had a mast cell tumor which burst, so while we hope it’s not related to that, we are definitely prepared for the potential of something along these lines.

Terra came along to be the official Public Relations Pup for Tiffany’s Diamond Dogs. Luckily all three dogs are really good travelers and incredibly patient-they just sleep on the long road trips.

We made it halfway to our destination and camped in Elk City, Oklahoma before completing the journey into Nashville.

Although other bloggers and attendees ran into some weather trouble, we were lucky to have very mild and nice weather for the long drive. We did wake up to a little bit of rain on the outside of the tent, but otherwise it was just a little cloudy. Oklahoma was absolutely beautiful-the highlight of the first day was the bubblegum tinted horizon coupled with a vibrant sky blue that looked like a scene pulled straight out of a fairy tale. There was a stark difference in the free roaming cows grazing the hills and the jam packed feed lots which could be smelled a few miles away before even becoming visible.

The second day was a little more eventful. While driving through Oklahoma there were a few turtles in the middle of road-turtles! What a strange sight! Oklahoma really should put ‘Turtle Xings’ along the highway! Some of the more interesting fauna included possums and armadillos though it was sad to see so many which had been hit on the side of the road.

Similarly, did you know that there have already been 323 deaths on TN roads already in 2015? A few billboards displayed this appalling note.

While sitting in Memphis getting ready to exit toward Nashville, a screech and thump accosted the air. I glanced in my rear view mirror to see a white vehicle slam into a car just two cars behind mine, bounce off and scratch the bumper of the car between us, and then careen across all four lanes of traffic to the right and off of the road. That was so scary to see-I really hope both people were ok and hope people drive more carefully.

We arrived in Nashville safely in time to check into our motel, drop our stuff off, and then head over the hotel where the conference is for the Ice Cream Social.

We walked around the grounds for a bit before heading inside for the event.

The social was sponsored by Mars Petcare (thank you Mars!!) and even included some pupsicles for the dogs! The ice cream for the dogs was all natural with simple and healthy ingredients-it sounded good enough for any person to eat too!

We saw many blogging buddies including MyGBVLife, Pierre and Bentley from MKClinton.com, Mauja and Atka from ItsDogorNothing, Gander the Service Dog, and Kona from K9 CarryAll. We can’t wait to see more familiar faces, meet new friends, and learn at the conference starting tomorrow. To follow more timely updates, follow us on Facebook and Instagram!

After getting ice cream, Terra got a quick bath before getting a chew and getting ready for bed. Though she may look clean because of her incredible wear and brush fur, she really needed a bath-especially after the walk and swimming at the river before we left.

If you’re at the 2015 BlogPaws conference, make sure you say hi to us if you see us around the conference! We’ll be taking lots of pictures as we explore-we look forward to meeting many people and learning some great things this weekend!