Tallahassee Bound, 1st Leg

05 August 2017

Somehow we got everything of Chelsea's packed up. Chelsea and I were in the Land Cruiser for this first leg because I was afraid that an animal wrangler might become necessary. We left a while before Heather in Chelsea's Prius and Travis in his car. The Land Cruiser was never meant to be a high speed highway car and the trailer wasn't going to make that better. I was guessing that the trailer had at least a few thousand pounds of crap in it. This kept me at or below the speed limit, so if we were going to meet up later for lunch or something I needed a head start.

There were four other passengers in the car. Chelsea's dog Leeloo was in her crate. Heather's dog Cally was going as well, her harness tethered to a cargo hook in the floor. We also had the girls' two cats that they had gotten when they were in elementary school in a smaller crate. We had tried to find another home for them in the valley but we were unsuccessful. With all this already in the car there was barely room for things like luggage and human passengers. I knew I was in trouble when I started to sympathize with Mitt Romney having the family dog riding in a crate tied to the roof rack.

Our first leg took us to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where Heather's mother lived. Since the only trips we had taken the pets on were trips to the vet they were a little anxious at first. Once we got started and boredom set in the animals calmed down, and remarkably, stayed that way. After the first 20 minutes it was as boring a drive as ever, interrupted only by some dog walking at the McDonalds in Benson. I had to downshift the Land Cruiser going up Texas Canyon, slowing to about 50 mph. As it turns out, that was the worst we saw for the entire trip.

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