Driving with Cats

I’ve driven across this big country several times, in both directions. I’ve done it with other humans in the vehicle and I’ve done it alone. I’ve also had the unpleasant experience of attempting to make the drive from Santa Barbara to Connecticut, with two cats.

One cat was a good rider, she always had been. The other; not a good traveler. At. All. He peed on me the first time he was ever in a car when we brought him home after he was found near a dumpster at a Motel 6 in Escondido, CA. Why my ex-husband thought a significantly longer trip would work is still beyond comprehension. (It literally breaks my fucking heart that later on in that poor cats life that same guy decided it would be ok to drive from San Francisco to Massachusetts after he’d left the poor cat mostly alone in a SF apartment for a couple of months.

Anyway. The earlier drive, the one where we were moving because I got a job that paid for our move, was the first time Al was made to suffer in the car as a big kitty.

We made it from SB to Ontario, CA. Stayed overnight then made it to Flagstaff, AZ before we couldn’t (I couldn’t) take the cat stress any longer. Al was so fucking stressed out that he smelled bad. It wasn’t cat pee, it was stress emanating from him. At that point, the easy going kitty, Kahuna, started getting extremely antsy and vocal. She was worried because he was so stressed and so, we ended up in a hotel with cats trying to figure out what the fuck to do.

Fortunately, the company I was working for was generous, took care of its employees at that time – what a novel concept – and made it fairly straightforward for us to shift our plans (what am I saying, I made it possible for us to shift our plans).

We staying a night or two at that hotel then traveled south by car to Phoenix where we were able to leave the vehicle to be picked up for shipping to our final destination. After that, we took the two cats, got a taxi to the airport and because it was before 9/11/2001, we made our way through security, to the gate and eventually, onto a plane.

No cats were harmed in that journey from California to Connecticut. Only some bruised human egos and one pissed off woman.