13 Ways of Looking at a Road Trip: 5, Illegal

I thought having a dog on a road trip was the most natural thing. I thought stops along the way would always be friendly. I thought we'd have adventures in the mountains, at rivers, on the beach. But I ran into some problems with this woman/dog adventure dream.

1. Oconaluftee Islands Park, Cherokee, NC

The first day was built for backroads and experiencing the Smokies. I drove up 40, then up 441 to get the center of the mountains. I drove with the windows down, without an air conditioner, which was bearable in the higher elevations and shade of smaller roads. When I passed the Oconaluftee Islands Park, though, with dozens of people splashing and picnicking and chasing the ducks, I pulled back around and parked.

Scooter is not a fan of water, generally, but I wanted him to cool off. I wanted to cool off, wash down my legs and neck. I wanted to sit in the shade and watch the ripple of water for a few minutes before returning to the sweat of my car.

But dogs are not allowed at Oconaluftee Islands Park, and so we just watched the ducks from afar and then walked back across the dusty parking lot to the car.

2. Appalachian Trail on the NC/TN state line

Though I had picked out the trail I wanted to hike in the Smokies a month prior to leaving, I didn't realize until the night before that it was not recommended for dogs. So I picked up a $1 Smokies trail map at the rest stop outside Waynesville, NC, and saw that the Appalachian Trail crossed the highway between Cherokee and Gatlinburg. It was decided.

I'm rather in love with the whole idea of the Appalachian Trail, first after reading one of my favorite books of all time, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, and then from hiking a 5 mile section with friends my first November in the South. I wanted to slowly build up my AT mileage in small sections. I would hike an hour in and then back because I had been traveling slow through the mountains, stopping often to gaze and read roadside markers, and because I wanted to make it to Knoxville at a reasonable hour.

The trailhead was a significant landmark, and dozens of cars were parked at the state line/lookout. After a quick reconnaissance to make sure it was indeed the trailhead and seeing the sign with a person walking a dog, I retrieved Scooter, buckled my pack, and we set out. The air got cooler; we took our time. It didn't matter how far we went, only that we were walking. I stopped and looked at flowers, plants, fungi, along the way thanks to my friend Helen Correll's teaching me to actually look.

About 30 minutes into the hike, after passing maybe a dozen other hikers, an older man comes down some rocks and stops where Scooter and I have pulled aside for him to pass.

"Do you have that dog for protection?" the man asks.
"Well, no," I say.
"Dogs aren't allowed in the backcountry." He walks just past me and looks back.
"But there was a sign at the trailhead," I said, confused.
"Someone must have tampered with it. I'm surprised no one stopped you. You can just claim it was a misunderstanding if someone catches you."

He goes on, and I am suddenly nervous. Why no dogs in the backcountry? There are dogs everywhere in the backcountry of the Blue Ridge. I pull out my trail map and search for any mention of dogs. None for, none against.

I go on for another ten minutes before turning back, after only 40 minutes instead of the hour I had planned. No one says anything on the way back. No one says anything when we emerge from the trail back at the busy lookout.

But I check that sign again, and, sure enough, someone had removed most of the red strip crossing out dogs. So this official photo of me and Scooter on the Appalachian Trail? It's illegal.

3. Harrison County Sand Beach in Biloxi, MS

The trip was supposed to end with me camping on the beach in the Gulf. I have never camped alone, and I had never been to the Gulf. But a massive storm hit me on my travels East from Houston, and I was too late to find a spot on the beach anyway. I drove into Gulfport, MS, around 7:30 in a rain so heavy that I couldn't see that I'd found the ocean until I sped up my windshield wipers and turned onto Beach Blvd. All white, all water.

I drove on down the road, following the coast, until I found a trusty Motel 6. I had stayed at them twice along the trip already with fine and cheap experiences but shifty clientele. And Scooter did not like these motel rooms. But this was a Motel 6 on the beach--on the beach!--and for cheap, so I figured it was the next best way to spend the last night of my trip.

But it turns out Motel 6s on the beach cost twice as much as Motel 6s anywhere else in the country. It turns out Scooter doesn't even like a hotel room that costs twice as much as it should and looks like it was designed with a discounted IKEA in mind. Scooter didn't like the rain, didn't like the cork floor, didn't like the single mattress bed.

So after another (this time expensive) sleep-deprived night, we were up by 7am and ready for a morning on the beach before the storms returned. We crossed the street, Scooter tested out the sand, I took off my sandals, we stared at the surf that wasn't as scary as I'd remembered the Atlantic, and then I saw the sign that said NO DOGS.

I couldn't believe it, so I googled "dog friendly beaches Mississippi." It turns out there are none. No, to have my dog on the beach I would have to drive to the Gulf Islands National Seashore off Pensacola, Florida, where I had originally hoped to end up. But I looked west and saw only black sky.

 So I took our illegal photo from the sidewalk and documented Scooter's illegal footprint in the sand he so badly wanted to dig in.

And then I put Scooter in the car (where he felt calm and safe) and went back across the street on my own to at least stand in the water, to at least feel the pull I had come for, to at least in some way complete my journey that had started at 5,000 feet and ended at sea level. And then I cast off for home.