731 Miles


Yesterday I made the loop from home to Gainesville, Jacksonville and back. Total mileage, 731 miles. Total time with short visits to Christy and Christian and Karen and Tim 14 hours.


The 3 cats didn’t seem to be too disturbed by the trip to Gainesville. Every so often on the drive one cat, Marmalade, I think, would let out one big “MEOW” and remind me I was not alone. Then there was silence for and hour or so and repeat.

I ran into rain from tropical storm Barry east of Tallahassee intermittently going both directions. Fortunately the traffic was light and the rain, while heavy at times didn’t cause any serious problems. Knowing I would be driving in rain I put a fresh coat of Rain-X on the windows before this trip. Visibility was not a problem.


In Gainesville I delivered some goodies to Christy and got to see pictures of a house Christian is interested in. In Jacksonville I delivered some goodies to Karen and Tim, played with their new camera and felt the baby kick.


Today I was tired from the trip but otherwise OK. I left the cat trap set in case the little tabby cat got hungry. It did and I was able to catch it. That cat did not like being trapped. I caught him around noon. It’s 9PM now and it still hasn’t eaten anything. I’m hoping it will eat overnight and settle some tomorrow. So now we have the 4 little kittens and the tabby to hold on to for a month until the kittens are old enough to be altered. Tuesday or Wednesday it’s back to Gainesville to pick up the 3 cats and bring them back home.

It is tough doing this with the cats. I’ve had a knot in my stomach through this whole process. I know it is necessary to do this. This all started with Marmalade a year ago. Now all 7 of the additional cats are here because of her. We can’t let each of those 7 make 7 more and we don’t want to have them killed. So this is the way it has to be.


At least it has been a challenge catching all the cats. Now I’ve got a trap to try and get that pesky raccoon that is raiding the cat feeder.