Rhonda and I got up at 3:00 AM Sunday morning, left for the airport at 4:15 AM with our Reserve Futurity Dog , Eagle Hills Cabernet Sauvignon, got on the 7:30 AM flight out of the San Francisco airport, got the OK sign from the flight attendant that the blue box with the dog got loaded, suffered through a packed flight, non stop to St. Louis, then had to worry that Cab continued on to Miami, but he finally came up 35 minutes later. This was his first flight but he was cool as a cucumber when we greeted him. Thrifty Car rental driver got a $20 tip since she helped put on our 2 large suitcases, with space to bring back goodies!, our two carry ons, one large wire crate for the hotel room, and the hard side crate for the stall at the arena. We had rented a Jeep SUV but after we put the seats down we found it was not tall enough for the crate so we changed it to a Minivan; I guess we were at the rental place for 1 hour but finally got everything worked out. We stopped at some stores to get food for Cab and some goodies for us. We had stayed at the host hotel Holiday Inn Wentzville the last time we had the National was here so it was nice to be in a familiar place. They now include wireless internet access in your rooms and that is how I am sending this to the list. I use to live in St. Louis but left way back in 1983; we are going to visit some old haunts on Monday including visiting some family and friends, and seeing my brother's older renovated home in South St. Louis that he got a couple of years ago that I have not seen yet. Will not be going over to the confirmation show site until Tuesday afternoon. So far Cab is a pleasure to travel with and he appears to be enjoying himself. I will be 60 in January and today has worn me out!!! Peter Cacioppo, Eagle Hill German Shepherds, Moraga, CA. ============================================================================ POST is Copyrighted 2006. All material remains the property of the original author and of GSD Communication, Inc. NO REPRODUCTIONS or FORWARDS of any kind are permitted without prior permission of the original author AND of the Showgsd-l Management. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ALL PERSONS ARE ON NOTICE THAT THE FORWARDING, REPRODUCTION OR USE IN ANY MANNER OF ANY MATERIAL WHICH APPEARS ON SHOWGSD-L WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF ALL PARTIES TO THE POST AND THE LIST MANAGEMENT IS EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN, AND IS A VIOLATION OF LAW. VIOLATORS OF THIS PROHIBITION WILL BE PROSECUTED. For assistance, please contact the List Management at admin@xxxxxxxxxxxx VISIT OUR WEBSITE - URL temporarily deleted due to AOL issues ============================================================================