LA/XC DAYS THREE AND FOUR:  NASHVILLE / TULSA / AMARILLO Two-day mileage: 971 Ricky, meet Tucker. Tucker, meet Ricky Total LA/XC mileage:  1,942 Road Music Saturday:  Country from my iPod ( stretch of I-40 between Nashville and Memphis is known as “Music Highway”); College football on XM Radio; Sunday: NFL Radio — Sunday Drive Two-day state tally:  4 (Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas) New states for Beagle Man:  2 (Arkansas, Oklahoma)...

LA/XC DAY TWO:  NASHVILLE, TN Broadway Ricky: Beagle Man, pooch, and new friend Steve in front of Tootsie's Today’s mileage: 666 Total LA/XC mileage:  968 Road Music:  CNN on XM Radio (missed the President’s speech last night; felt guilty; had to get caught up); ESPN Radio; “The Highway” (new country); playlist from Mikey Ice, featuring Black Keys and My Morning Jacket (thanks, Mike — loved “Off the Record”), and then...

LA/XC DAY ONE:  ALEXANDRIA, VA Today’s mileage: 302 Road Music:  ESPN Radio; “The Highway” (new country) on XM radio; my “Hurricane Irene” playlist (a mix featuring Adele, Springsteen, Keith Urban, Dixie Chicks, Creedence, Gretchen Wilson, Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, and others) Weather leaving Westport:  75 and sunny Weather arriving Alexandria:  74 and monsoon rain Well all right!  That might have been the most piss-poor get-away I’ve ever...

Just one more day until our much-anticipated road trip.  Yup, tomorrow Ricky and I em-BARK. Ricky's last sleep for three weeks in the Cozy Confines of Devon Road Though I like the image of me and my pooch riding side by side across the country, carefree and up for anything, kind of like Butch and the Kid, in reality . . . a hell of a lot of planning went into this trip.  There are some (that would be my wife) who might even say too much.  A couple of days ago Carol crept up...

Bring it on, Irene! Sunday morning, 4:50 AM.  I hear the shakety-shake.  Ricky had jumped out of his bed and was doing his morning dog-thing.  The moment I had half-dreaded, half-anticipated had arrived:  My beagle was going out in the pitch black to pee in Hurricane Irene! I was well-prepared for the “event” — had spent a good part of Saturday afternoon battening down the hatches.  Now I was ready for the display.  I expected some wimpiness on Ricky’s part: ...

Zoe, Chloe, and Tucker (top to bottom) I’d by lying if I said I wasn’t starting to really look forward to my cross-country drive to L.A. with my doggy.  I know it all started as a promise to Robby to bring his pup out to USC for an early-fall visit . . . but let’s face it — how great is this gonna be for me!?  Three thousand miles of open road — just me, my music, and my dog, who, by the way, never complains about my playlist, or my route, or where I...

Have been out at the beach in Montauk on vacation for the last two weeks.  Have forgotten — as you can see — how to write in complete sentences. In the midst of this sun-sand-surf interlude, with nothing but picture-perfect weather, my niece Kat had a baby — George Edward.  To be called Teddy, apparently.  We were in Manhattan for a visit last week, and I got to hold young Teddy, who is a perfectly gorgeous little boy.  Strangely, I found myself pursing my lips and...

"It's so hot. And I'm full of sand. And the horse flies are eating me alive. And I hate the water. I just don't get it . . ." We were on the beach yesterday — a reasonable move, I think, with the temperature up over 100 — when Romeo, our neighbor’s nosey little Yorkie, came scooting over as fast as his tiny legs could carry him to check things out at our little sand chair community. Seeing Romeo enjoying life on the beach gave me a sharp...

Dog owners are always trying to one-up each other. My last post on Ricky’s relentless pursuit of food elicited comments from followers about their own beagles’ never-ending quest. One reader says her Boo has snagged and devoured a tray of fudge, toffee bars, a pound of cheese, a pound of ham — and frozen apple porkchops that were defrosting on the kitchen counter. Another writes that her dog ate a pound of Hershey’s kisses (he unwrapped it very neatly),...

Post-bagel bliss All dogs live to eat. Most dogs would be happy to eat — anything — 24/7. The thing that separates my very special beagle from the pack is his resourcefulness in sniffing out the newbie in any given group (the person not used to dogs in general, to Ricky in particular, and hence, the one who’s most likely to leave his/her food unguarded) — and then moving in for the kill. Here’s how my stealth dog operates. Let’s say we’re...