Reuniting with the Dog

The moment we've been anticipating after a 12-hour drive home to Kansas City from Alabama.

Buenos Aires - Puerto Madero, the Port District

Another day spent exploring a new part of Buenos Aires (BA)!  Today, we went to the Puerto Madero area.  This is the newest district in BA that converted its old brick warehouses into some of the ritziest lofts, offices, hotels, and restaurants along the formerly abandoned shipping port. It's only a stone's throw away from the center of the city, too. We knew BA was a port city, but this was the first time we set eyes on actual water since we've been here for a week.  The cobblestone lined promenade along the dikes are a nice place to stroll and admire the interesting architecture; although on a Friday afternoon, it felt like we landed in the middle of a high school field trip.  Huge groups of teenagers running amok made for a less peaceful experience, but we sheltered ourselves under a cafe awning and paid an exorbitant $30 for 2 beers to enjoy the view without the Argentine teeny-boppers (and well worth the expense).  We didn't make it to the large ecological reserve, sandwiched between Rió de la Plata and the Puerto Madero promenade and dikes, but how it came to be is interesting.  In the 1970s, as an urban development plan, they filled about 865 acres of the river banks. However, this project was called off and the landfill abandoned from development.  Over the next decade, numerous species of plants, trees, animals, and birds began to settle in this area - becoming a rich natural reserve for local flora and fauna!  How cool is that?!

Housesitter + Dogsitter

If we didn't love our dog so much, this trip wouldn't be so difficult on our emotions and finding her a wonderful dog sitter while we are gone!  If we didn't have the dog, it's very likely that we would make a clean break and sell our house or put it up for rent.

We went back and forth with options for maintaining our household and dog in our absence, and we kept going back to finding somebody who loves dogs, who would be willing to live in our house and watch our dog in return for free rent.  Hmmmm.  That's a "tough" decision for anyone, really.  Free rent plus being a temporary dog owner without the permanent responsibilities?  Sign me up.

Another good reason to break the ice about our trip to everyone we know, is to ask for leads on potential house/dog sitters.  In a short amount of time, we actually had several viable leads from reliable sources.  We were very hopeful that we didn't have to go through a house/pet sitter service and begin interviewing strangers who would suddenly become entrenched in our very personal lives.

Ultimately, however; our first hopeful choice was a friend of ours who already watches our dog when we are out-of-town and is familiar with our house.  Our wish was to not pressure our friend into doing something she didn't really want to do.  So, we waited patiently and established other leads, just in case.  It's great news for all of us that she has committed to staying at our house for the entire time.  We couldn't be happier with the decision and a huge weight has been lifted of our worrying shoulders.

Now, we can move onto other worries...such as making a decision on health insurance and so forth.