saturday's long drive

Wow! What an intense, crazy past three days. At last, all of our stuff is packed and on the truck (with the exception of a few stray items that we missed). Seeing the truck pull away was really difficult for me. Then it was the good byes to the neighbors. Lots of hugs and tears.

This morning was getting the "last few items" into Kevin's car. Funny how you think your vehicle is bigger than it actually IS, so in went a few more items to either (a) be packed and sent, or (b) just left behind.

Then it was time to load up our car with the cats....the cages we had already determined we were going to use didn't fit due to the fact we had to lay our sleeping bags on the floor of the car. That extra bulk made everything too tight, so we had to reconfigure. (Which worked out better in the long run, but I will elaborate on that in a minute). Henry, Sadie, George and Spatz all went together in one and seemed excited about the trip ahead of them. Ernie, Lizzie and Gracie Moon on the other hand, were TERRIFIED. Thomas was Thomas and just mad he couldn't go outside.

Now it is time to leave our driveway. I knew it would be difficult, but really wasn't prepared for the total melt down I had. Leaving Bryan and leaving our home is probably the hardest thing I have done.

The drive today was long and HOT. Thomas suffered a bit of a heat stroke in Tehachapi, so a stop to McDonald's for vanilla ice cream and ice was in order. We got him cooled off and put him into the cage with Henry, where it was a bit cooler, and he was okay. Later in Needles, Ernie was having the same problem. It was there that we threw away the one cage to make more room in the truck for air to circulate (Sorry Cheryl).

California is truly a diverse state, and it was nice seeing all the different terrain, but with all the set backs this morning we didn't get started until 9 and it was 9:30 when we pulled into Kingman, AZ. Our goal was to hit Flagstaff, but we were all tired and we wanted to get the cats out!

Tomorrow should only be a 8-9 hour drive, not so bad. While this is all so sad and surreal, I can't look back and will try to make this a "fun" adventure.

Time for sleep...