This is Morty's new favorite spot while we're moving - ie, snoozing on the "dog bed" up front, right between the driver's and buddy seats. (I wonder why Tim always exclaims, "Another cat picture! Oh, good! We just don't have enough of those.")

On our way to California, we stopped in Reno, NV, where Tim grew up, to visit his family. (Any Reno 911 fans out there? Tim loves his home city. I don’t think he really gets how the show makes fun of it. Or, maybe he’s just in denial. It’s been known to happen.) Since Tim was about to go to the Big House, we treated ourselves to a fabulous steak dinner at Harrah’s Steak House. We were chatting with our waiter, Tony, and discovered that (a ahem certain number of years later) he took over Tim’s boyhood paper route at the Reno Gazette.

I got treated to tons of uproarious biggest little city humor. You know, the kind that’s just so darn cute. (Fortunately, Harrah’s has quite the extensive wine cellar.)

“Didn’t you love trying to hit Mr. Krakowski’s cat when you threw the Sunday edition?” OK. Not really, but that might have been a wee bit more interesting, at least.

It sure is a small, small bus world, though.

Reno provided one more opportunity for nostalgia. On our way out of town, we stopped for gas at Baldini’s, the very same place during the start of our bus year, where the door finally jammed for good (after opening three times at 60 mph our very first day on the road, nearly sucking me out each time) and we had to call a locksmith to open it and save our pets from the sweltering 100 degree heat. He was supposed to stop by our RV park the next day to provide us with a more permanent fix, but never did show up. When I finally called his store, I was told that he had quit.

I guess seeing a grown psychiatrist cry was too much for any man.

When Tim and I traveled the Seward Highway south of Anchorage (to get to the Kenai Peninsula) during our bus year, we were struck by the moose warning signs. It seemed to us shrinks a rather perverse twist on the notion of constructive criticism, since rather than merely warning, they also announced how many of the beasts had been hit on Alaskan roads thus far in the year.

Fortunately, we were also not struck by a moose, as this Alaska State Trooper nearly was when one fell off a cliff.

This was actually the only moose we saw on Kenai - a cow and her baby.

(And, speaking of moose, see my Feb 1 entry to win a poopin' moose - and a copy of QUEEN OF THE ROAD, of course.)

He's up for Top Dog on Media Bistro's GalleyCat. It is the cutest picture, you must agree. Still, we'd appreciate your support. Vote here!

Here's the picture, as if you need any more incentive (and, yeah, yeah: So what if I submitted a shoe-in to GalleyCAT):