As the Midwest team, Super Dog Sam and I get to spend a fair amount of time in Madison, Wisconsin, home of Oscar Mayer , and THE WIENERMOBILE!

The luxury of our time in Madison?  Visiting Oscar Mayer headquarters allows us to drive our bosses bun-anas, and take plenty of photos with office Wienermobil-ia.

Hot Dog Headquarters!

Did you know the Wienermobile visited Alaska in 1991?  This photo from the Wienermobile Department of Oscar Mayer is bun-a fide proof. Fun fact: the Wienermobile has also visited Hawaii, Germany and Guam!

The United States Postal Service delivers hundreds of millions of messages to more than 140 million locations each day.  Since the Wienermobile and Hotdoggers are busy delivering hundreds of millions of smiles each day, Hotdoggers’ mail is sent to Oscar Mayer headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin before it is shipped weekly to where we are staying.

It doesn’t get better than…receiving a surprise package in the mail!  One of my closest friends and sorority sisters, Stephanie, sent me these franktastic Valentine’s Day gifts!

Be mine?  You’re doggone fine!

When you’re traveling coast-to-coast for a year, its bunderfulto have supportive friends and family.  Despite how much I love emailing, blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, Skyping, etc., there’s something special about handwritten messages and…

Hot dog-oriented gifts!  Stephanie has a complimentary Ketchup necklace and the newest addition to our sorority family will have a Mustard necklace.  We’re forever linked!

The players of the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers aren’t the only big dogs that bring their Big D (defense) to the Big D (Dallas, Texas).

The Wienermobile zips through Dallas just as easily as Clay Matthews makes a tackle or Ben Roethlisberger passes over 300 yards in one game.

Greetings from Baton Rouge, Louisiana!

When Picklin’ Pat and I visited Dallas a few months ago, we took photos of WEENR in front of the old Cotton Bowl stadium.  Who knew that a few short days after we visited LSU, the Tigers would be the 2011 Cotton Bowl Champions?  Congratulations, Tigers!

While in Baton Rouge, we also visited the Louisiana State Capitol building.  At 34-stories, or 450-feet high, the Louisiana State Capitol is the tallest building in Baton Rouge and more importantly, the tallest state capitol building in the country.

A series of steps with the names of all of the United States in the order of each state’s admittance to the Union leads to the main entrance.

Shout out to Pennsylvania from Baton Rouge!

Did you know dogs dream like humans and about similar things?

For those of you with children, you know sweet songs from a mobile sooth a baby to sleep. Did you know sweet songs from a Wienermobile keychain soothes a dog to sleep?  ”Oh I wish, I were an Oscar Mayer wiener…”

Peanut was a chilly dog so we bundled her up for sweet dreams of a Wiener Wonderland!

Although I am a fan of raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens;

bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens…

I thought I would share a few of my favorite things with you this holiday season.

As most may know and others may wonder, a tour in the Wienermobile is a year long.  Hotdoggers receive time off for Franksgiving and the Holi-dogs (Christmas).  When I most recently returned to my hometown outside of Pittsburgh for Franksgiving, I was blessed with two amazing surprises:

The first surprise was this t-shirt to add to my collection of Wienermobile-ia. A family friend received this shirt after seeing the Wienermobile in the 90s and thought I was worthy of its ownership.  Franks, Charmaine!

My second surprise was tickets to the Pittsburgh Penguins versus Calgary Flames game. Since I left Flat Wienermobile in Dallas, I brought my beanie weenie to the game for a photo.  Sitting 7 rows from the glass, on the side where the Penguins shoot twice, is ALMOST as cool as sitting shotbun in the Wienermobile!

Franks to my friends and family for allowing me to “simply remember my favorite things”!

Picklin’ Pat and I knew we couldn’t leaf Dallas without sprucing up our Wienermobile, branching out, and visiting the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden. The arboretum is 66 acres of colorful gardens displayed among beautiful groves of pecan trees, magnolias, crape myrtles, cherry trees and azaleas.

I was excited to see this Monarch butterfly!  It was in root to Mexico on its southward migration.

If your appetite for adventure steers you to Dallas, why not visit the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden?

I wood highly suggest a visit!

Have a cool Yule & franktastic First!

One-horse open sleighs aren’t the only mode of transportation dashing through the snow this time of year.  With six Wienermobile vehicles trekking o’er the fields of the country, a few are bound to meat snow here and there.

Picklin’ Pat & I were astounded to see snow on the Wienermobile in Memphis, TN.  The snow may have been a small dusting but truth be told, the south gets cold!  Bundling up desired!

Some cities share a strong connection to our job. One city is St. Louis, MO. In 1904 the World’s Fair was held here where many summertime favorites first gained their popularity:  the ice cream cone, cotton candy, Dr.Pepper, iced tea, and THE HOT DOG BUN!

There are many different tales of how the hot dog bun originated.  The most common goes a little something like this: A Bavarian concessionaire, Anton Feuchtwanger was serving hot dogs at the 1904 World’s Fair.  He provided white gloves to his patrons for holding their “Wiener Whistle-ing” hot sausages but many failed to return the gloves, decreasing the supply.   In quite the pickle, he asked his brother-in-law, a baker, for help. The baker created long soft rolls that fit the sausages- thus inventing THE HOT DOG BUN.

Kudos to Saint Louis for the Gateway Arch pictured below and…THE HOT DOG BUN!