I dreaded loading the cats into their traveling cages. I wanted to be SURE they could not escape the house, garage or car. We started out putting each cat into a cat carrier, then out to the garage and into their specific cage that was already loaded into the Explorer.
It went so much easier than I had expected! In fact, after the 2nd cat, Petey just carried them out there with a hand scruffed on them and his other hand snuggling them close to him. I think he got one small scratch but all in all, I'm so thankful!
We had to have the garage door closed, obviously, in case a cat got loose from us but it was a cool day and everyone was fine for the time it took to load them. I drove the car around and right up on to the car dolly. We left it running with the a/c on while we continued to load the car to the max. We planned to idle the car and run the a/c during the heat of the day while on the road.
We put sun shades across the windshield and in the driver and front passenger windows. The rest of the windows had darker tinting already. The Youngs stopped by for a final hug and good-bye, we sat for just a few minutes in the Circle of Love one last time and then at 5:24pm on Monday we pulled away from our old life and started the trail to our new life.
It took about 5 hours for the dogs to decide on what would be a comfortable spot for each of them. I expected the cab of the U-haul to be MUCH bigger than it was! Buddy layed on the floor the whole time, which I anticipated. Dingo and Piper fought for who could be closest to Mommy. Dingo was on my lap for several hours and Piper was halfway on top of Dingo!
We made our first stop at a rest area into Louisiana about 7:45pm. The boys ate supper, went potty, we walked around quite a bit, we checked on the cats and turned the a/c off in the Explorer as it was now cool enough and the sun was going down. We opened the sunroof a few inches. I forgot to tell you that we had a remote thermometer in the Explorer so I was constantly monitoring the temperature in there from our position in the cab of the truck.
Our next stop was about 11pm...dogs went potty and then we decided to sleep for a few hours. We had left a long narrow space in the Explorer and had our memory foam mattress topper folded up to make a bed. Petey slept in there and I layed down across the bench seat in the truck...with a dog next to me on the seat and 2 more on the floor!
We slept for about 4 hours...I slept much better than I'd expected...Petey said the meowing kitties didn't let him sleep too solid = ( Then it was on the road again!
to be continued.......
