From Coast to Coast – With Cats

All right, so admittedly Idaho isn’t exactly on the coast, but it is close enough to the west coast that my move to Massachusetts was significant.

I suppose any move across state lines is significant but I’m sure you gather my meaning here. We spent 40 hours on the road, not counting pit stops and the necessary Motel stays.

I must take a moment to give my husband a shout of appreciation for doing all the driving. I’m 97% sure I would have had a heart attack trying to pull the UHaul on my own.

So! 40 hours on the road with one 10-year-old (who slept a great deal of the trip) and two very unimpressed cats. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, let’s go ahead and start with the obvious – Cats don’t like cars.

Like, at all.

My cat in particular (aptly named Pest) chose to pee on me before we even left my home town of Boise. Granted, I realize this was a direct reaction to never having traveled further than the vet’s office in his 9 years of living, but it was a sad portent of things to come.

Pest spent the first hour and half of every day crying.

Every morning. No matter how early we chose to rise and get started, and we were getting up at 4AM to avoid traffic in the more populated cities.

After that first hour and a half, either because he ran out of kitty-voice to expound his displeasure or because he got used to the whole moving car thing, he quieted down and hid under my son’s feet to sleep.

We also had a big fluffy dinosaur thing that I put in the back seat for the kiddo to sleep on, but the cats decided that was a perfect-most-wonderful-spot to sleep UNDER. Not on top of, but UNDERNEATH, hidden from view, thus keeping the kiddo from being able to really use it.

The other kitty (named Nuisance or Funny Face or whatever the kiddo decides for the

day) did much better. He didn’t cry or pee in the car at all.

Nooooo, not that cat.

Instead, Nuisance chose to find any hiding spot he could in the hotel rooms, leading us on a frantic hunt up and down the halls of the third hotel. (He was under one of the beds, pressed so tight against the foot board we couldn’t see him.)

Beyond the upset kitties, there are a couple of issues to take note of;

#1) The lady in Utah going 40MPH in a 70MPH zone. She really, really, really needs her license taken away. Or some loving family member to drive her around.

#2) Wyoming is full of nothing. SO MUCH NOTHING. Nebraska is a close second, but unless a cataclysm happens and the landscape cracks open or something, Wyoming will forever hold the title of Most Boring To Drive Through.

#3) The Motel 6 on the edge of Wyoming gave us a room that was already rented, leading to a super awkward moment. Also, that motel is so close to the train tracks there is really no sleep to be had there. Every twenty or thirty minutes there was a train rumbling by right outside the window.

#4) Omaha is the gateway to Hades. Or at least their roads look like it and I’m really surprised we made it out of there with our souls intact.

And there we have it. Suffice to say, the trip wasn’t awful.  Brendon and I did have some fun, we got through the first three Naomi Novik Temeraire audio books, and once the landscape turned there were interesting things to look at.

That being said, I’m glad we made it safely and look forward to more adventures in New England.