Road Trip!

The following is a slight departure from art posting, which I hope to resume by the end of December!

The adventure has begun!  Having moved about 90% of the things I will ultimately be taking to Idaho already, I am now in the car with my two trusty companions, Rascal (dog) and Gertrude (cat).  And the car is packed to its limits - what can I say?  I have a lot of stuff, lol!

The map shows each of my seven overnight stays.... I have limited myself to about 6 hour driving stints, although of course the car time is a bit longer due to pit stops for all of us and filling the car.  Prior to leaving, I made reservations at each destination with pet-friendly motels directly off the Interstate to minimize lost time.  The pets are extremely well-behaved (even Gertrude, which surprised me! No howls at all - I hope I did not just jinx that!)  But even so, eight days in a car with all of us - well, you get it!  The total trip is about 3100 miles (or just shy of 4900 kilometers).  We hit 1200 miles today.


Here is the itinerary - I am writing this while in Columbia, Missouri.  Tomorrow is a very long day (7 hours driving, plus pit stops), but after that it gets to less than six hours daily, weather permitting.

And the weather is a big deal this time of year here, especially with all of these storms blowing in from the Pacific Northwest.  Much of the country really needs the water, so I don't mind.  Just hope to avoid icy conditions.

We did run into snow today, though luckily the storm was traveling east while we were moving west....

Due to a very bad accident involving two semi-tractor trailers, we came to a complete stop for two hours about 20 minutes after leaving Plainfield this morning.  Luckily we were warm and cosy, with a full tank of fuel, and good cell coverage so I could message my family and catch up on email, play a few games of solitaire, enjoy the really lovely snowfall (no kidding), and try to quell my anxiety about the delay.  We cleared out of the storm about an hour after finally getting back to actual travel....

Here is what the setup for the pets looks like:

Gertrude (cat) is 14, but still very lively, and only 7 pounds.... so she has a little mesh "house" on the passenger front seat, equipped with a special pet heating pad (never gets very warm) plugged into the light via an octopus lighter thing I got in Minnesota while driving back last summer.  My phone, the makeshift satellite radio, and her heating pad are all plugged into this device.  I have had her "house" with heating pad set up on my couch for a few months, so she is very used to it.

Her litter box is in the foot well, within a large garbage bag to contain the invariable litter spray.

You can just make her out through the mesh.... she does very well, although it is hard on her eating habits as she usually grazes throughout the day.  So I feed her first thing once we are ensconced in the motel, and leave the food out until we leave in the morning.

Rascal has the back seat, which is his usual domain, though a lot more crowded than generally is the case!  By the way, that is a piece of dried chicken jerky that he has yet to discover in the lower left :-)

The backity-back is full with a real dog bed for Rascal once we are in Idaho, clothes for the trip, some craft stuff that happened to fit (of course!), my wonderful Bernina sewing machine, food for them and me (I have a lot of "add hot water and enjoy" stuff just in case I am too tired or the weather is too crappy to go out for real food.  The top carrier on the car is various small Ikea things for the house, and backpacks, or other outdoor things I wanted to take that are lightweight.

So off we go tomorrow - day four of eight, but who is counting!  Looking forward to getting home, and will post more pictures over the coming weeks.... and I hope to catch up with all the wonderful blog posts from all of you, after I finish grading my online courses tomorrow!  Such fabulous makes I spy out there!!  Can't wait to see them in more detail!

Thanks so much for stopping by - and if you've time, please do leave a comment as I love hearing from you all!
xxx Lynn