Do not try this at home

We had (still have) a huge list of things to do to get our affairs in order for this trip… the most important being taking our two cats, Django and Scamper, as well as my large, mostly tropical plant collection to my Dad’s house in Pennsylvania for an extended stay. This ended up being extremely traumatic, for all involved.

I reserved a cargo van and we’d do the trip over ten days. Total mileage: 3,400 miles, RT. Transporting the cats was fairly simple, if very stressful for us and the cats. They’ve both made long journeys before – Scamper from Georgia to Texas and both of them from Texas to Colorado. Transporting the tropical plants in the middle of winter on the other hand…

The most important thing – was keeping all the plants warm, and if possible, provide light during the day. We placed all the plants in large boxes with a buddy to keep humidity and warmth up as much as possible. We also filled the voids around the pots and plant foliage with crumbled up paper to trap heat, along with dropping some hand warmers around the pots. For light – we tested if a grow lamp would run off of a DC converter and thankfully, it did. I also made sure to reserve a motel room with a door to the exterior so we could hopefully back right up to the door and bring the plants in for the night. We knew we had to make the trip to PA in two days to minimize shock to the plants.

We went to Hertz to pick up the van the afternoon before we were planning to leave… they brought it around and we saw that it had a partition between the passenger and cargo area which meant the cabin heating would not reach the back and my plants would freeze. We asked the kindly attendant if they had any other cargo vans or if they could determine where another one was available. Apparently, several vans were potentially coming in overnight, and we could come back in the AM to see what rolled in. We were pretty disappointed considering we wanted to start driving at 5AM so we could land at our destination before dark. Those plans were dashed though – and we were starting to freak out – what if we couldn’t get a van without the partition? We came back home and researched what else we could do in case the worst came to pass – we ended up locating some horticultural fabric that advertised keeping the temperature around the plants 5-8 degrees higher than outside air. Bingo! We bought all the packs the hardware store had.

We came back the next morning and one cargo van had come in overnight. VERY fortunately, this one lacked the partition so we could conceivably blast the heat and keep the plants alive. Phew! We were late to get on the road around 9AM, but at least the plants had a chance.

This van also had the luxury feature of making high pitched squealing noises going over concrete. The pitch changed depending on how the concrete was finished, and we experienced an unending variety of squeals to keep us from getting too bored.

We loaded everyone up, Django and Scamper included, and set forth on our voyage. First day was 13.5 hours of really exciting driving across Kansas, Missouri, and finally stopping in Pochahontas, IL. We got in very late and the motel ended up working out perfectly – we backed right up and launched everyone from the van into the room. We only had one casualty, a very long cactus which took a dive to the pavement. We were very fortunate that day to have mild weather along the route – I think it was 60s almost the entire way.

On the second morning, we planned to leave at 7am -- we had 13 more hours of driving to do. We were loading everything into the van when I closed the door to the room to keep the cats from escaping and as I was closing it asked Vitali if he had the key… a resounding no…

We ended up having to wait until 8am for the manager to get there and unlock us. We looked through the window at our cats who were looking back at us from inside the room. Late again. Made it to Pennsylvania finally that night. It was low 20s when we arrived but got everyone inside quickly and the plants seemed fine.

We spent a few days visiting, distributing items for Mom, Dad, for our planned vacation to Mexico in August, as well as items we'd need for our RTW trip but not for this summer. No trip to PA would be complete without purchasing a large bag of Middleswarth BBQ chips which I watched Vitali eat. Finally, the time came for us to begin our journey back to Denver, which we would do over three days instead of two. We said our goodbyes and there were tears! Our dear Django is the most affectionate cat I’ve ever met: he cuddles with us and sleeps next to me every night. Scamper is our bastard but we love her too. I told them both we’d be back but Scamper was preoccupied with the possibility of food and Django was distressed by the commotion.

On our route back we stopped in Michigan City, IN on the first night, and visited Indiana Dunes National Park the next morning. It was cloudy and windy, but not too cold! The National Park is on the lakeshore of Lake Michigan. We went on a short hike over the forested dunes and then walked along the shoreline. By chance, we also ran across the Century of Progress Historic District– five homes from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair that were relocated here. They are leased to private individuals who are renovating them.

This pink one below was an advertisement by the State of Florida by their Tourism office.

We stopped for the second night in Omaha, NE. I was hoping to find a really good steak in cattle country but couldn’t find a place that I was comfortable with being GF.

The third day we arrived home, and spent the next three days sobbing about how much we missed Django.

As it pertains to the rest of our worldly possessions – we rented a 10’x17’ storage unit and had made multiple trips there with our newly minted Cargo Fiesta, as well as hiring some movers.

We spent the last few days in Denver in an empty apartment, save our camping equipment, waiting for a package to arrive and for Vitali to get to the dentist. Denver had had 19” of snow on the 16th and we both had appointments that day that were subsequently cancelled. The package never came.