Silverwood 2008 – An Excellent Adventure!
By Cleo Parker
In 1972, I attended my first Silverwood Trophy competition. I was 16 years old and the guest of Douglas and
Joyce Rose, who sold me my first Bull Terrier, Laura (Hylo’s Bounty of Melrose.) I remember flying student
standby for the sum of $36 round trip from Detroit. I have not missed a Silverwood since then, and of course,
like most North American Bull Terrier enthusiasts, I’ve dreamed of winning the Silverwood Trophy, but little
did I imagine that 2008 would be that year!
I got a taste of the glory when Ch. Nuance Nominee went Reserve White Dog in Calgary in 1985. That dog,
Grant, is behind all the dogs I have today through his granddaughter, Ada (Am/Can Ch Horizon’s Harlequin
Romance, RN.) Ada is the grandmother of Marley (Am/Can Ch Nuance Nonsense, ROM) and her litter sister
Jolie (Ch Nuance Nonchalance, ROM.)
The decision to attend Silverwood this year was clouded by the fact I had lost my job just a few weeks
earlier. As noted, I haven’t missed one in over 30 years, and it’s not the first time since I was out of school that
I wasn’t gainfully employed when Silverwood rolled around. However, this was going to be a particularly
expensive trip, involving a 1200 mile road trip, $4 a gallon gas, and 4 days at a $120/night resort hotel. My
husband Mike and I discussed it briefly and decided that we were going to go ahead. He’d been planning to
visit his sister nearby, we wanted to indulge our passion for roller coasters at Universal Studios, and I had
already promised 3 other people that I’d drive their dogs down. Two of them had their plane tickets and we’d
all sent in our entries, so away we went.
Monday, the day before we left there were dogs coming and going for hours; Denise Myers came down to drop
off Phoebe (Nuance Night Moves) and take Ada back to her house, Sandy & Peggy Beisel-McIlwaine came
by with Sport (Nuance No-hitter at Foxairn), then Brianne Colling with Jolie and we of course, were taking
our own Marley. I ran my other house dog, Anna Nicole, over to Bob & Jennifer Bender’s house so they could
watch her while we were gone. Bright and early Tuesday morning we set out. There were two 400 crates facing
out the back for Marley and Jolie, another 400 facing out the passenger side for Sport and Phoebe was in a 300
facing out the driver’s side. In the space between the crates, our grooming table, folding crates, all the dog and
human luggage, snacks, coolers, and Mike’s golf clubs were stacked to the ceiling. We had our trusty Google
map printout, plenty of coffee and homemade muffins in the front seats and we were on our way.
On the recommendation of Mike’s brother in law we didn’t take the usual Michigan to Florida route of I-75 all
the way. We took the more scenic, less congested and slightly longer route which goes east through
Cleveland and then down I-77 to I-95 into Florida. I had made reservations in advance at dog-friendly hotels
along our route; not the easiest task from a distance! The first night we stayed in a Red Roof Inn near Charlotte
which surprised us not with their dog charge, but the fact it was a per-dog charge, fortunately only $5 a head,
but unexpected. The next day we stopped at Mike’s sister’s house on Merritt Island for a late lunch and then
drove the last hour into the Wyndham resort in Orlando. The Wyndham was huge and a bit confusing; it
consisted of a very large convention center with a number of separate buildings where the sleeping rooms were.
Only 2 floors per building, but no elevators, we fortunately got a ground floor room in a building that was fairly
close to the convention center.
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