After almost a week, we finally made it to Seattle. We closed on the house on Friday 3/22 at 11am and were originally going to leave right afterwards, but because Darrell got sick on Wednesday and I got sick Thursday while we were doing the last minute packing and packing up the truck, we were exhausted and needed to sleep. So we rented a room at Motel 6 and stayed the night in Abilene.
We finally left Abilene around 11am CST to get on the road and attempt to make it all the way to Farmington, NM. Our first 3 hours of the trip was pretty uneventful. Poleeko had found a way to get under the hotel boxsprings, so we had to dig him out when we were getting ready to go. Luckily we found that if we have them in their small cage with a blanket over it, they seemed to feel a lot safer and there wasn’t any howling. About 1 hour until we got out of Texas, the winds picked up and we ended up in a lot of dust storms where Darrell was trying to stay on the road and avoid the tumbleweeds flying at us. It didn’t get really bad until Melrose, NM. Once we got into that town, there was a massive dust storm and we ended up parked next to a gas station for almost half an hour waiting for it to calm down. We were starting to wonder whether we would make it all the way that night or if we would have to stop pretty short of where we wanted to. Luckily, it seemed to die down a little bit and we got back on the road. We still dealt with small dust storms and lots of wind until Albuquerque, but it was no where near as bad. We did end up making it all the way to Farmington, NM around 11:30 MST. We stopped at the Motel 6 again and tried to get a room. All they had were rooms with no heat left and the weather was already about 20 degrees outside and dropping. We didn’t really want to do that since Darrell doesn’t sleep well when it is cold and we had the cats. So we spent a little bit of time on our phones figuring out where we could stay reasonably with the cats. We ended up at the La Quinta and it was amazing! The cats didn’t like it and yowled a lot when we first let them out. They seemed to feel more comfortable under the covers at our feet than anywhere else.
The next morning, we had some of the continental breakfast and went to go load up the cars and everything. Poleeko had once again found a way under the box springs and unfortunately, the room we got had two queen beds. It was fun trying to guess which one he ended up under and pick it all up just to find out he was under the other one. Poor Darrell had to move both beds to find my cat. 🙁 We determined we would only get a single bed the next time. They were quiet on the whole trip until late at night when they wanted out, so the car ride was pretty smooth.
Our second day of traveling was pretty easy-going. We left Farmington, NM around 10am MST. We headed up through a small corner of Colorado, then headed into Utah. We stopped in Orem, UT for dinner with my sister, Carole, and Sean. Then we headed further up to Idaho Falls for the night. We called the La Quinta in Idaho Falls for reservations for that night once we left Salt Lake City. Once we got to Idaho Falls, Apple maps failed us and tried to send us to Laquinta road instead of the La Quinta Inn. Once we realized we weren’t finding the hotel, we figured it out and ended up having to backtrack about 10 miles or so. We finally found the hotel and got ourselves checked in by 11:30 MST. This hotel had a 24 hour Hot Tub, so once we got the cats situated in the room, Darrell headed out and spent some time there. I just went straight to bed. This was the easiest night as we found out that the cats are a little more mellow if we give them some catnip. We just placed some catnip outside their carrier before we opened the door and spent some time petting them and they did great! No yowling, they wandered the hotel room checking things out and they even felt comfortable enough to not need to be under the covers at our feet!
The next day was our shortest day for that leg of the journey. We only had a 9 hour drive. We ate our continental breakfast and were getting ready to get the cats back in their cage. Darrell didn’t really want to have to move the bed, but luckily, Poleeko didn’t find a way under it this time! Zedd however found a tunnel between the bed and the wall, so Darrell had to pull it out a little bit so we could nudge Zedd into the carrier. They weren’t happy with it, but it was slowly starting to be easier to get them in the carrier.
We left the hotel around 10am MST and headed north. We had to do a small(ish) jaunt through Montana in order to get up to Sandpoint. We made it to Sandpoint around 5:30pm PST. We were able to get the cats out of their carrier and let them explore Lorna’s cabin where they are spending their next few weeks while we find a place.
All in all it was fairly uneventful. We stayed in Sandpoint for a few days and finally headed toward Seattle on Thursday morning. We are currently looking for housing and are definitely missing our kitties. Hopefully we will have a place to live before the middle of April so we can start our unpacking and nesting for EJ.