Road Trip, Part 1

So it has been an interesting trip so far. We have driven about fifteen hours and only made 10 hours of progress. It started off well enough; Zach and I piled all our belongings from the hotel into the car, I sat Josephine (our cat) on my lap, and we drove over to the Budget rental office. I left Zach there while I went to Ariel and Craigs to start getting our stuff out of their basement. When Zach showed up with the truck, we threw everything in (not literally) and left for the storage unit.

By this point, Josephine had worked herself into a veritable frenzy, yowling loudly and clawing the cage. We left her in the cage on the passenger seat of the truck with the window down while the rest of us packed up the truck. This also went well, with everything easily fitting in place with room left over. Several times I went to the front of the truck to check on Jo. It was during one of these breaks that I noticed that the top of her cage, which comes open to allow easier access to its inhabitants, was open. And the window of the truck was open. And there was no cat to be found. Ariel, Craig, Zach, and I had to traverse the expanses of the storage complex, which ended in a large field and a salt silo, searching for the damn escaped cat. After several minutes I saw her walking across the parking lot a distance away. I ran after her and cornered her into a fenced dead end. By the time I got there, though, she had disappeared. We finally found her crammed into a tiny corner under the fence. When we dragged her out, she was panting heavily and even more worked up. Have you ever seen a cat pant? I haven’t. I gave in and shoved half a cat tranquilizer down her throat, and she relaxed within minutes.

After this adventure, things began to go smoothly again. We left Columbus with no problems, moved through Dayton, and continued along 70 through Indianapolis. At this point we noticed signs saying “70 closed ahead, take 74.” Hmm…doesn’t look promising…maybe we should check the Indiana transportation department. Using my trusty computer, wired into my cell phone’s data plan, I combed through a variety of websites. Nothing. No mention of problems on 70 or anywhere else in Indiana. We found the same silence when we turned on Indiana’s traffic and weather station. And given the fact that 74 slowly branches more and more away from 70, we decided to ignore the warnings and moved along at a steady pace for a while until, suddenly, we came to a stop. Not heavy traffic, not 30 mph. A stop. In two and a half hours we went maybe 10 miles. Finally we were routed off of 70 and we went north to 40. We figured, hey…it goes parallel. Eventually we can just hop back on 70 and continue on our merry way. Until we stopped again, of course. Yup. We drove maybe half an hour before we hit the same wall again. We wasted another two and a half hours going 20 miles until we finally decided to turn around, drive an hour north to 74, and completely reroute ourselves. It turns out there was a huge flooding problem in Indiana. Terra Haute was in a state of emergency and was being evacuated. By the time we found a hotel right by the entrance to 74, it was 9:00. We had left at noon, had made maybe three hours of legitimate progress, and it had been nine hours. What a complete waste.

All these complaints don’t include a variety of other problems we encountered. Our roof leaks…right onto my head. The transmission is located right under our feet, and this makes the floor (and everything resting on it) terribly hot. This includes our cat carrier. It took us a little while to figure out that she was really over heated and not just complaining about being in a cage for hours. But we finally made it to a hotel, where annoying drunk people ran through the halls yelling until 3:00 am.

Today has been much better. The worst that has happened was a little accident with Jo. We tranquilized her before we left this morning, but she woke up about an hour into the trip and was really restless and uncomfortable. I finally figured out that she was pawing the floor of her cage like a litterbox and crying. Unfortunately, I figured it out too late. She peed all over and then got it all over my sweater when I picked her up. She was more comfortable, I was far less. Oh well. It has now been 7 hours, we have 9 more to go today, and the worst problem we’ve had is a little cat pee. Of course, we’re driving through Iowa on our way to Des Moines and the fields have become lakes that come a little close to encroaching on the highway. But hopefully the waters will stay at bay and we’ll be able to drive through this mess. Meanwhile, Zach and I are trying to keep ourselves occupied listening to endless episodes of This American Life, Car Talk, All Music Considered, and a variety of other NPR gems. And we have, of course, been keeping track of license plates. We purchased a little magnetic tin from Target that has all the state license plates that we can position as we see them. We’re only half way there and we’ve already found thirty-three states. Oooo…In fact, Zach just got two in one (Washington and Oregon) when he spotted a semi who’s rig had a different license. We despair of completing all fifty states since we’ve left the more common thoroughfare of 70, but one never knows.