June 15, 2019, DAY 2
The morning of the second day started at 7:00 am. We had to travel 565 miles that day and needed to get on the road. Our morning chores involved feeding the cats, cleaning the cat box, packing up our stuff, getting ourselves ready and, wait for it, drugging the cats.
The prescribed Gabapentin came in liquid form which meant we had to shoot it in the cat’s mouths with a syringe. The best friend drew up one milliliter, handed me the syringe, picked up Olive and away we went. Olive is a petite, tiger stripped Main Coon and is the quietest of the bunch. She hadn’t quite anticipated what was coming and we got the medicine in easily. Next came Smitty, the big white one. It was a bit of a struggle but he took it down.
Then it was Eleanor’s turn. Eleanor is a high maintenance Main Coon with long black fur. She is very verbal and is always getting in trouble. Curious to the point of exhaustion she is in everything and on everyone. She is also smart and had figured out what was going to transpire. As the best friend wrangled her into position I was ready with the syringe. We didn’t have long to wait until she opened her mouth to complain making it the perfect time to shoot the liquid clear to the back of her throat. Done and done.
Time to corral the cats in the cage, get the cart and and load up the car. Because of the tight backing job we did in the beginning we had to take half of it out to get the cage out the night before. That means we had to repack the back half all over again. And we had to do this three more times. Kill me now was becoming a recurring thought.
Montana is a gloriously wide state and we were to cross over all of it. I-90 Eastward Ho. From the mountainous western territory to the flat, eastern prairie it was miles and miles of green, with blue sky overhead filled with fluffy picture perfect while clouds. There’s a reason they named this state “The Big Sky Country” for it seems like the sky goes on forever. Driving down the highway we saw many a billboard but the craziest one advertised “Adam and Eve for Lingerie and More.” Out in the middle of nothing. At that point I knew I had to relay this to the muse. He texted back, “Farmers like their kink.” Well, that explained everything.
A while later we noticed the cats were surprisingly quiet. The day before we would hear an occasional meow or yowl. Nothing out of control but it was nice to know they were still with us. But today, nothing. It occurred to me this could be a case of ‘Schrodinger’s cat’. For those of you not up on this physics experiment, an Austrian named Edwin Schrodinger devised a thought experiment, or a paradox as he called it. If you take a cat, a flask of poison and a radioactive source and place them all in a sealed box, and the internal monitor detects radioactivity, the flask could or could not shatter releasing the poison which kills the cat.
Since one doesn’t know when this will happen or if it has happened, the cat can be simultaneously dead and alive at the same time. This is a very, very simplified version. But it explains my thought pattern when I didn’t hear anything from the back. Worry set in, nausea rose and thoughts of what would we do with three dead cats ran through my brain. The best friend called out, “Olive? Smitty kitty? Ellynore? And then, very quietly, three minuscule meows came to our ears and all was right with the world.
It was time for lunch and in true Lucy and Ethel fashion we googled for the nearest ice cream. Nutritious? No. Desired? Yes. And we deserved it. It was amazing how quickly and efficiently two women could find ice cream in a strange land. Oh, that we could have navigated the round-about this well.
Somewhere along the way we saw a sign to Crazy Woman Creek. I felt this could have been aptly named after us because who but crazy women would take on this adventure?
We arrived in Gillette, South Dakota, our second night on the road. Checked into the hotel, retrieved the hotel dolly, loaded the cat cage and baggage and snuck in the back door. It was a little easier this time. As the cats came out of the cage their look said it all, “Where the heck are we and how did we get here?” We were asking ourselves the same question.
Our hotel was a Best Western. We had two queen sized beds and room service. One of the most civilized amenities in the history of the world. I love room service. As we tucked into our separate beds we again gave thanks for a safe second day.
magicalmess 