The Great Journey

As you all know about 9 months ago Gary and I packed everything up and hit the road heading for Washington.

We have had many people ask us how we managed moving 7 cats and 2 dogs 3,000 miles cross-country. Like so:

Despite many people's worst fears the trip was surprisingly fun and fairly stress-free. We let the cats out of their crates after the first day and they were much more relaxed, of course the anti-anxiety pills helped with that as well although we stopped giving them those when they stopped eating and drinking.

We drove 12-16 hours a day which meant a lot of time driving in the dark (crossing the Mississippi at sunset):

Monument in Nebraska...um...no idea what for. Can anyone help on this?

We stopped from time to time and let the dogs out(in Wyoming):

And to admire our scrappy looking convoy. How could anyone doubt that we were from West Virginia? (again in Wyoming)

Crossing from Wyoming into Utah

How could I resist?

And on into Idaho. Different rocks, windier roads. This is where Gypsy started to shake. It must have been the looming hillsides that we had to wind through. Perhaps she was afraid that they would fall over and crush us all.

We caught peeks of the Bitterroot Range through the clouds and fog.

We passed a hay pyramid in western Idaho or eastern Oregon and I just had to take a picture.

Much of the rest of the trip was driven in the rain and darkness. We drove along the Columbia River and into Washington at around midnight and finally reached the house at 3:00 in the morning. We pulled the mattress out of the van, dragged it into the house, brought the animals inside and fell asleep. We had reached our new home!