Intro and a journey from Virginia to Tampa to meet my new best friend, Havoc the Belgian Malinois!

So my name is Morgan. The hope with this "blog" of sorts is to have a way of sharing the often crazy adventures I find myself on with family, friends, K9's, and strangers! There will be dogs, lots of dogs. There will be BMX bikes, ATV's, dirtbikes, motorcycles, racing, firearms classes, fighting classes, hiking, camping, bushcraft, grammatical errors, and lots of comic relief. Pull up a chair, sit back, and enjoy!

VA >FL>VA in 2.5 days
Havoc would be 10 weeks old the weekend of December 2nd which also just so happened to be my birthday. I had to work until 3:30 so that is when I planned to meet up with Ryan and head to Savannah for the night. It was a cold but pretty uneventful evening with minimal traffic. We rolled into the hotel at 11:00PM and settled in for the night.

Sunday morning Ryan and I woke up bright and early to reloaded the Xterra and knock out the last 5~ hours of the trip. Georgia was still a little chilly and extremely foggy but we made good time. Before we picked up Havoc we dropped by a pet store to grab a harness, bed, and enough food and treats to get us home. The closer we got to Florida the fog seemed to die down and the sun appeared and it was clear we weren't going to need the jackets we had been wearing since the previous day.

The plan was to meet Eric and Alyssa of Coastline K9 at 12:00 for lunch on the beach at an awesome outdoor tiki bar. We arrived about 15 minutes early and stripped all of our winter clothes to soak up some of the beautiful sunshine and get into beach mode and prepare ourselves for the arrival of the new puppy! As expected they showed up on time and we made our way over to their parking spot and they wasted no time introducing Havoc the Belgian Malinois! I immediately held him up to my chest and he laid his little head on my shoulder and we just stayed like that for the walk to the beach. The guy at the entry told us at first there were no dogs allowed but we explained that this was vital for his imprinting and socializing and reassured the man we would hold him while we ate.

The food was great and Havoc was perfectly content just laying in my lap while we ate on the beach. After lunch we took a walk over to the waters edge and introduced Havoc to the Atlantic ocean for the first time. He wasted no time and happily walked right in. Eric walked in with him and played with him in the water while we all conversed and took pictures.! After both Eric and Havoc were soaking wet and covered in sand we all said our goodbyes and Havoc, Ryan, and myself hit the road again in search of a local park that we could hike at.

A short drive later and we pulled into Honeymoon Island State Park. We asked the park rangers where the best trails were and they suggested we head to the end of the island and start our little adventure there. Havoc happily hopped out of the Xterra and we slung our day packs and cameras. We started the short hike and quickly encountered a group of small children out for a hike with their father. This was an important introduction for Havoc as my wife and I have two awesome boys of our own, 1 and 8 years old and I was eager to see the interaction! As I had hoped he absolutely loved the kids and couldn't get enough of them. Throughout the day we ran into a few other groups of kids and he quickly ran to all of them! The trails were amazing and filled with wildlife, namely armadillos and mosquitos. As luck would have it I had just taken the bugspray out of my vehicle the prior weekend since Virginia is in full winter mode. After what seemed like hours of swatting and slapping we booked in back to the vehicle and headed over to the beaches where the wind would keep the bugs at bay.

Having had a long exciting day we all thought it best to go ahead and make one more short drive to our friend Paul and Tori's home where they had graciously offered to let us crash for the night. After bringing all of our gear in and settling in we spent the rest of the evening chatting while eating pizza and watching Top Gear before finally calling it a night. We did take every opportunity possible to send my wife Aimee blurred pictures of the pup since I had wanted him to be a surprise for the whole family. Up until then she had only seen one picture of him.

The next morning we got up and started the final leg of the trip straight back to Virginia. Havoc was a trooper and slept almost the entire way there only waking up for brief periods to get out and do his business and stretch his legs. The trip seemed to take forever and I was exhausted so Ryan volunteered to take the wheel for a few hours while I sat back and caught up on some much needed rest. We rolled into the driveway around 9:30PM and Aimee excitedly ran out of the house and up to the back driver side door where Havoc was sleeping... (To be continued)