[uujudy]

Traveling 2400 miles across the country with two kitties was really an adventure for us! On the first day Baby Monroe finally stopped yowling around Little America. That's in Wyoming, and about 4 hours into the trip. Every time we stopped the car for a rest and started again he would yowl for an hour or so.

We bought 2 small soft-side cat carriers for the trip instead of the big hard-side airline carriers we usually use. They have mesh sides and close with a zipper. They saved a lot of space in the car, HOWEVER the mesh sides are pretty much shredded by now, and getting the cats back into them in the morning was harder than if we had used carriers that they couldn't sink their claws into. The carriers close with a zipper. It was a 2- person job to get each cat into his own carrier each morning. Tommy Boy "snags" on things with his paw. It's part of his OCD personality. He will lie on the floor next to the dishwasher and "snag" on it for hours. If he can get something to make a sound when he snags, he's happy. He'll lie next to the window and snag on it at the bottom so it makes a clicking sound. He did this with his carrier when he discovered he could make the zipper pull make a dinging sound. For 2400 miles we listened to Baby Monroe yowling and Tommy dinging. YOWWLLL, ding ding ding, YOWWLL, ding ding ding ding....

We had figured out by Kansas that if we bought them each a hamburger (plain, no ketchup, no pickle) they would fall into a drugged-up stupor, and actually sleep for a while. Think about THAT next time you get a hamburger! We could drive almost 200 miles in silence after a hamburger stop... except for the first time in Kansas when we didn't wait long enough after the hamburger stop and Baby Monroe spewed all over his cat carrier. We pulled off the freeway and Mr. Judy (bless his heart) battled the wind to clean out the carrier by the on-ramp. Wish I had pictures of that. lol

We tried letting them each out of the carrier for a while, but Tommy Boy just hid under my feet, and Baby Monroe tried to hide under the brake pedal. They seemed to feel safer inside their carriers. We felt safer without a cat under the brake pedal.

We also had to factor in the time it took to unload and load the car every day. We had the 2 cats and their carriers, the litter box, the bag with the cat food, fresh litter, Tommy's eye medicine, cat treats, and their favorite blankets. It was like traveling with a baby. If we drove too long and waited too late, by the time we were all unloaded and the kitties were fed and pottied and settled in at the new motel, all the restaurants would be closed. After seeing the effects of hamburgers on them I sure didn't want us to eat fast food all the way across country. We had to stay sharp!

We made it to The Villages. We're still married, and both kitties are doing fine. Just get yourself some of those foam earplugs. You can do this!