We visited my parents this weekend for their birthdays and Easter. It was a nice trip, though it rained a lot. It takes an awful long time to get there through the two-lane highways in Arkansas.

When we got home from church Sunday, the next-door neighbor said, "I think that dog got out."

We'd left Maggie in the backyard while we were gone. And she'd gotten out, in a strange neighborhood, at least half an hour before we knew about it.

oh no oh no oh no oh no...

We jumped in the car, Dad got in his, and we split up. I nearly sent Julie through the windshield with my Dukes of Hazzard style job of backing out of the driveway and taking off. Between Julie and me screaming for Maggie, Julie screaming about Maggie, and me screaming at Julie because of her screaming about Maggie, it was a pretty stressful scene.

We'd gone on a walk the night before, and we headed in the direction we walked. We remembered that there were a couple of dogs at one particular house which Maggie had wanted to play with, so we stopped at that house. We learned from the owner that Maggie had been there and had left about fifteen minutes earlier. We drove off in that direction, talking to people we saw and calling for her. Nothing.

I decided that we should go back to the house and get our cell phone, so we could check our messages at home in case anyone found Maggie and called the number on her tag. We drove back towards the house and Julie yelled, "There she is!!!"

And there she was, running around on the other side of the busy street near my parents' house, right at the top of a hill. Where cars zoom by. And little kids have to press a button to stop traffic before they cross the street.

I pulled quickly into a driveway and jumped out, calling for her. Since she knew she was in trouble, she headed across the street and down the hill towards the house. I actually stopped traffic with my hand like I was a movie star and ran across the street after her. Julie followed in the car.

Meanwhile, Mom had seen Maggie from the house and was running up the hill after her, squeezing a squeaky toy like mad.

I finally got close enough to Maggie to let her know that I wasn't mad at her, and she came to me. I grabbed her and picked her up.

(btw, 60 pounds of squirming muscular dog is no small thing to just "pick up".)

We put her in the back of the car and looked her over. She was fine. Muddy, but just fine.

We, on the other hand, have still not recovered.