On January 2, 2024 Caroline started a new job at Harvard University. After four plus years at the University of California, Berkeley she developed a desire to take her museum leadership skills to the next level and Harvard took her up on the challenge. This meant that we had to move our household and two cats, Oskar and Lil’ Bill, from Berkeley, California to Boston, Massachusetts. Although we were no strangers in moving two cats from state to state, this would be the biggest undertaking of the sort and it would be done in phases. On New Years Day 2024 Caroline set out to Boston to start her new job, leaving me behind in Berkeley to pack up the house and make the moving arrangements over the next few months.
By this time, Oskar was approaching 19 years old and showing it. He lost most of his hearing a couple years earlier and had a hard time jumping up onto the bed. However, he had no trouble jumping onto the much higher kitchen counter in search of greasy pans to lick. But his bones were creaky and he started to experience seizures. Worried about moving him, I took him to the vet several times out of an abundance of caution for all the tuneups he could get. Meanwhile, Lil’ Bill was fine. But the last time we moved him, which was from our previous house just a block away, he cried and peed himself during the 1-minute car ride. So each cat had their own prescription of gabapentin and an array of pheromonal sprays to keep them calm during the coast-to-coast move.
Back in Boston, Caroline secured us a new house with the lease starting on March 1. After moving herself and two suitcases into the house that first day of March, she flew out to the University of Oklahoma to receive an alumni award for her (still early) career achievements. The first week of March also happened to be spring break for the University of California, Berkeley, where I was still working; however, we were encouraged to use this week to catch up on long-running projects, take no meetings, and work remotely. This was the perfect week to move the cats. So I rented an SUV, a Chevy Equinox, packed it up with home essentials, and set out with the cats for phase two. The planned route would take five days. At the midway point in Oklahoma City I would pick up Caroline and we’d drive the remaining 1600 miles to our new house.
Day 1: Flagstaff, Arizona
Around 6 am, I took off from Berkeley for the first leg of the drive. Oskar and Lil’ Bill were secured in large carriers in the backseat of the rental, surrounded by boxes of pots, pans, blankets, clothing, and a litter box. Although they were dosed up on tranquilizers, they howled furiously and tried to escape from their carriers for the first few hours. Then they peed and pooped themselves. The smell was awful! At the first stop in Bakersfield, CA I did my best to clean up each cat with baby wipes, but the mess was soaked into their fur. At some point their tranquilizers finally kicked in and they slept while I drove the 12 hours—most of which was rainy— to Flagstaff, AZ. I only stopped for gas and later wolfed down a packet of salami and cheese quickly at a rest stop. I finally reached the pet-friendly hotel in Flagstaff around 10 pm. My experiences with overnight road trips taught me to never leave your car full of stuff, even when (especially when) in a well-lit hotel parking lot. So for the first night of many, I spent a considerable amount of time loading all the moving boxes in multiple trips into my room. Once the car and the cats were unloaded, I bathed each cat in the hotel sink before letting them run around the room to dry off. I also had to thoroughly clean each carrier for the next day’s travel. The first night, exhausted from the stress of driving with two howling, dirty cats for over 12 hours, I didn’t even eat any real food. I bought a couple bags of chips, a carafe of wine, and a can of beer from the hotel lobby and just passed out on the couch while Sponge Bob played on the TV.
Day 2: Amarillo, Texas
In the morning I fortified myself with the prepaid hotel breakfast before performing the daily ritual of tranquilizing the cats and loading up the SUV. I briefly considered letting the cats roam around the car’s cabin for this day of travel, but Lil’ Bill immediately ran under the gas and brake pedals while Oskar settled onto my lap. I decided to lock them back into their carriers, at least until I got out of Flagstaff and then let them out once I was on the freeway. Even though Day 2 was a considerable 12-hour slog, the cats weren’t howling as much (although still howling) and didn’t stink up their carriers. In fact, starting with this leg forward, Lil’ Bill would spend most of the next few days hiding in the litter box. Every few hours I would have to forcefully remove him so that Oskar could use the bathroom. I put their food bowl on the passenger seat floor, where it would be most secure from my herky-jerky driving style. Oskar sometimes sat on the passenger seat, but he mostly sat on my lap during the drive. The few times Lil’ Bill voluntarily ventured from the litter box, he would climb onto the dashboard or back under the pedals. Other times he would attack Oskar while Oskar was on my lap. And yet, through all this chaos, I still managed to get us safely to Amarillo by 9 pm.
After the nightly load in, I put on some fresh clothes and walked to the steakhouse next door. Caroline deliberately chose this hotel based on its proximity to the Big Texas Steakhouse, where you could eat a 72 oz steak for free, with the caveat that it had to be eaten in one hour. You also had to eat all of the sides in that time period. Frankly, the steakhouse was kind of depressing, with teenage staff in blue jeans and cowboy hats serving mostly empty tables. The food wasn’t cheap, but at least it was mediocre, and not down-right awful. There were a couple of steak-eating challengers which provided a pleasant diversion from an otherwise somewhat hostile environment. Texas, am I right?
Day 3: Collinsville, Illinois
Day 3 offered more excitement and some reprieve over the previous two days of traveling alone with two cats. Partway through this leg, I would pick up Caroline near Oklahoma City and she would accompany us for the rest of the trip, sharing the burden of driving and wrangling Oskar and Lil’ Bill. By now, the cats had free reign of the Equinox’s cabin for the duration of the drive. I only put them in their carriers when ferrying them between the car and the hotel rooms. Departing from Amarillo at 7:30 am, I scooped up Caroline four hours later in Norman, Oklahoma. Although the car was already packed to the gills, everything had to be re-Tetris’d to accommodate her and her luggage. No problem! During this trip I had been listening to an audiobook of Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue, which told the story of the evolution of the English language. Caroline seemed to enjoy the dry but informative wit of this book, too. Regardless, the first part of today’s drive was only ⅓ of the way to our destination, which lay 7 hours away in Collinsville, Illinois. Caroline did volunteer to drive the first four hours, which finally allowed me to rest for some of the journey.
I’ve always enjoyed driving over the Mississippi River, but not so much driving through St. Louis. Traversing through this historical continental gateway and seeing the St. Louis Arch seemed to signify great adventure ahead. Unfortunately, you had to navigate the spaghetti-bowl of St. Louis’s freeway system. Once we landed on the other side of the Mighty Mississippi, it was a short drive to our hotel room. By this time, I had gotten the load in down to a science, although Caroline was inclined to disagree. But once that was finished and the cats were settled in, we ventured to Applebee’s for some drinks and more mediocre, if not depressing, food. Afterwards, we picked up some gas station beer for a little more hotel-room drinking. With Caroline running interference with the cats, I was actually able to get some of my remote work done too!
Day 4: Niagara Falls, New York
On Day 4 we started out two hours later than usual. As it turned out, not only did I have to wrangle two cats, but I also had to wrangle my new passenger. We finally left at 9:30 am and traveled across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and landed in Niagara Falls, New York. Because it rained for most of the drive, it took over 12 hours to get to Niagara Falls. And when we arrived it was nearly midnight and dangerously foggy along Lake Erie. By now the cats were very much settled into their new routine. Lil’ Bill stayed in the litter box, coming out for food every so often and to bully Oskar. Meanwhile, Oskar mostly slept in my lap, whether I was in the passenger seat or driving. Caroline did drive a little bit, but the rain made her nervous so I drove most of the way. By the time we reached our hotel, I felt a tickle in my throat so I started drinking lemon herbal tea. A combination of stress, exhaustion, and close proximity to kitty litter for days on end had worn me down. One thing I looked forward to was that this would be our last load in of the trip. The next time we would unpack the Equinox would be our last.
Day 5: Boston, Massachusetts
On the fifth and final day of our trip I woke up with a sore throat and maybe even a low fever. Before hitting the road, we wanted to visit the falls, so we planned a quick excursion during our hotel breakfast. From the US side of the border, we were going to see the falls from Goat Island. Being early March, it was very chilly and the off season for the falls. We didn’t mind the cold, but we didn’t expect that it would be so foggy all morning. However, since it was off season, we pretty much had the entire island to ourselves, along with just a handful of other visitors, so that was very nice. We paid extra to do the tunnel tour, which took us beneath the falls for a close-up look. By this time, the fog had lifted considerably and we got really spectacular and personal views of the falls’ majestic power. As noon was approaching we were in a hurry to get back on the road, but not before buying matching souvenir t-shirts and eclipse sunglasses from the visitors center in town.
And like the night before, I was thankful this would be our last load out of the trip. Because I was getting sick, Caroline volunteered to start the day driving, but that only lasted two hours. Once again, the rain followed us all the way from New York to Massachusetts, so I took over driving duties while we finished listening to our audiobook. The cats took their places: Lil’ Bill in the litter box and Oskar on my lap. At one point while I was driving with Oskar on my lap, he started to twitch and spasm. Panicking and trying not to wreck, I yelled at Caroline to pick him up and hold him. Once she held him, the seizures stopped. This was the very thing that I was afraid of: Oskar dying during the trip. A few minutes later, Oskar pretended like nothing happened and wanted to sit in my lap again. Although we were presently in the clear, we had to address Oskar’s mortality. We didn’t know how much time we had left with him, but we were going to make it count.
About eight hours later, we finally made it to our new home in Boston. After unpacking the SUV and getting the cats settled in, we walked a couple blocks away to a nearby restaurant to cap the trip off with cocktails and comfort food. It was such a long drive—over 3300 miles in 5 days—and there was so much anxiety going into it, but we all made it. I would return the rental in a few days and then head back to Berkeley alone to finish packing the house and setting the next phases of moving in motion. But for now, we could rest.
stackofokcats 