A few stories from the trip out to North Carolina:
First of all, we brought all of the cats and, fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, they all made it out here safely. We drugged them on the advice of the vet. He said that cats can get motion sickness so this would help. All in all, it was much easier than I had imagined. I'd heard horror stories from Mike's mom about kitty-$hitty accidents...thankfully, we didn't have any of those. Drugging them was interesting though...the vet had said to give the pills 30 mins. or so before the drive and not to feed them. Maybe just rub the pill on some chicken so that they might be more likely to take it (yeah right!). So, not having some chicken lying around (everyone in the world does, right?), I rubbed the pills in tuna. Of course, they liked that...but I forgot that Tuffy doesn't always take to human food and as I was getting ready upstairs - he puked, lost all muscle control of himself and tumbled backwards down the stairs. I really thought he was dead for a minute. His arms sticking straight out like a dead animal you see on the side of the road. Thankfully, he only fell down the first part of the stairs and landed on the landing or else I'm pretty sure he, uh, wouldn't have made the trip.
Anyhoo, we gathered all the kitties and the baby and finally got me in the car after what felt like an eternity...I kissed the house goodbye and pretended that we were just heading into town for a coffee...
Hours later we stopped at a Cracker Barrel in Indiana.
I'm sure that Mike was worried I was going to extend the trip by eating every couple of hours (like I'm prone to doing) but we kept going and going until we reached Charleston, West Virginia at around midnight or
later...I was skeered to death of driving on all the sharp curves and, for the first time, really felt scared of heights. I thought the car would go flying of the road at any second. Mike assured me that I was probably just really tired...we'd see in the morning...
Got a late start the next day...I'd promised Mike that we'd eat at McDonald's as a treat somewhere along the way. I have avoided McDonald's and trans fat for a year or so now - so this was something...And we even let Matilda have a taste...
OK, we were ready to hit the road (at around 1:00 in the afternoon). Those hills (which turned out to be or
turned into being mountains) were still skeering the crap outta me. I seriously thought my car would fly off the road and into oblivion or something. But, they were also so beautiful it was breathtaking. Maybe that's why I was so scared. I'm not the best driver to begin with and I'm even worse with distractions. And I couldn't help but look at the beautiful sites I was going by...
(see oblivion out there?)
(We drove through a mountain. Well, two of them actually.
I really loved it - driving through the tunnels was pretty fun.)
As we left the last tunnel, I saw traffic backed up for miles going in the other direction. I called Mike to mention how horrible that looked...how terrible for those people...what if that happened to us???
Of course it
did happen to us. Not too many miles later when we were almost to Virginia. We had a very short drive through Virginia - maybe 100 miles or so. And we ended up parked on the highway for at least an hour. But, I think we made the best of it. I changed and fed Matilda. Got out of the car and met a lady that was heading home to North Carolina. She's a foster mom of Main Coon cats...very nice lady. It was a nice way to spend some wasted time...
Back on the road again...lots of calls from friends and family and, again, close to midnight we made it into Jacksonville. Woke up the next morning, went to pack up the kitties and couldn't find one. Aggie had wedged herself under the air conditioning unit. I really thought we were going to have to leave her there or have them remove the unit from the wall - but after some
careful tugging, I got her out.
On the way through Jacksonville and past Camp Lejeune, I noticed the fence along the road was decorated with messages to soldiers that had returned home. It was a touching site to see:
We arrived at the new place safe and sound.
Oh wait, there they all are.
