9 Months on the Road

It was the early summer of 2016, my housemates were selling their house in Jersey City, NJ in which I lived on the bottom floor. With the sale of the house, I would be moving on too. I had made arrangements with my Mother to live with her for a while in Florida while I figured out where I would move to more permanently. Shortly before I was to hit the road with my animal family and head to Florida, my Mother called to inform me that one of her cats had Feline Leukemia, and it wouldn't be possible to have me stay with my animals.  I tried half-heartedly to find a new apartment in the Jersey City environs, but my attempts weren't successful, and the deadline was approaching in which I needed to vacate my bottom-floor apartment.

The truth is, I had no real desire to find a new home, and thus was born this wanderlust to spend some time intentionally undomeciled. My housemates thought I was crazy when I told them my plan to just get in my truck, with my animals and my motorcycle and find accommodations along our way of adventure. They thought I was even more unhinged when I disclosed the first stop along adventure's way would be a two week stay at a truck stop, in CT.

I found myself rather excited about this upcoming undomeciled adventure, as opposed to the time in 2012 when I became homeless - truly homeless. Perhaps my early experience with homelessness made me unafraid of not having a permanent physical home. Deeper down, in the years since my travel though, I came to the realization that my decision to go rogue was also tied to a very deep and pervasive feeling of not belonging - not belonging in my family, circle of friends or acquaintances and not belonging in society. In fact, my Australian cousin, really said it best when he exclaimed to me upon learning my plans "You're planning on leaving society!!". Yes, cousin John, that was exactly what I was doing - with my animal family in tow.

It was a pleasantly warm August day, when all the more permanent household items had been tucked away in a storage unit, and my truck was filled with everything I would need to live while on the road. I had spent some time in the weeks prior to this day of departure, also setting up my mobile work office in the back of the truck - a setup complete with 2 monitors. Not sure how I managed to put everything I needed in that truck, including my bass and fiddle. On that August day, I put Ranger, Sapphire and Harlowe into my F-150 and closed the door on the empty apartment that had been our home for the past 2 years. With the animals in the F-150 with the AC blasting, I walked around to the back of the house to get my motorcycle. The Sportster was going up in the truck bed. I laid out the ramps up to the truck, rode the Sportster once around the block to warm her up and rode her right up into Chuck, my truck. I had ridden the bike up the ramps a few times before without incident - however, this time I had had the grand idea to line my truck bed with a rubberized floor just before our departure. As the Sportster came onto the bed, the rubberized floor slid out a bit and I almost ended up with the motorcycle on top of me...but I'm a strong girl and I was able to steady her and straighten her upright just in time, averting the spill. It shook me up a bit though, and I felt the first real surge of loneliness pump through me. I was alone that afternoon on the golden sunlit street, no one there to help me should I have fallen, and no one to wish me and my animals a good trip and farewell.

I pulled out of Jersey City forever that afternoon, with Ranger in his bed in the cab of the truck and the kitty girls in a long cat tunnel in the bed of the truck. There was no room for the kitties in the truck with all my stuff in there, and I thought that the wind coursing through the screens on the cat tunnel would give them appropriate cooling. I was somewhere in Jersey, heading towards the George Washington Bridge, when I just felt I needed to pull over and check on my girls. The minute I stepped out of the truck I knew I had my first quandary to deal with...the weather so agreeable just a few hours ago had turned into a blazing hot August day. The kitties meow-howled as they saw me when I came to the back of the truck. They were not having any of this truck bed riding, and I could tell that it was too hot for them even in the air-cooled tunnel. I made a decision in that moment that would define the rest of our travels - cats were put into the truck, sans any cat travel bags or containering. From that point on, I had the most amazing travel with my two kitties, they loved being free in the truck - they would settle down in their respective areas and just enjoyed the ride. Usually Sapphire would be seated in the passenger seat in her cat bed, and Harlowe would be snuggled next to Ranger's rump in the cab of the truck.

Our first destination, as I mentioned before, was a truck stop. I had made a reservation in advance at this Pilot truck stop in CT. The reservation was for one of the tractor trailer spots. Later on, I came to learn that an F-150 can just park in the regular car parking (no reservation required) at the Pilot truck stops, but I didn't know this at this point - so when we pulled in, I was a small F-150 nestled in between a sea of huge tractor trailers. Needless to say, I got a lot of odd looks from truckers over the two weeks we stayed there. I did meet some very interesting truckers during our stay. At the time I was pulling off this stunt, I didn't think of it as hard, or crazy or anything difficult. I worked from the inside of my truck during the day - and since it was the dog days of summer, the AC was blasting and I was going through about $30 in fuel a day. That was my first realization, that my plan of 'cheap' truck stop living wasn't going to be so cheap. Ranger and the kitties were so content just hanging out in the truck with me while I was working. I would take Ranger on many walks on the truck stop grass patch through the day, and for periods of time I would put the kitties in their cat tunnel now under the tailgate of the truck, in the shade. I had a litter bin on the floor of the passenger side seat of the truck, and this is where my girls would go to the bathroom. It may sound very strange to hear, but we were all really content in that compact space. I have to say that animals are just truly amazing, they adjusted to this truck living right from the get go. They weren't trying to escape the truck, they never looked bored, or anxiety-ridden or unhappy. They always seemed deeply content, we were all just very happy to be together. I think it was this close-knit feeling of togetherness that birthed my little moniker for them, my 3 Musketeers.

Ranger and I would sleep cuddled together in the cab. We would be spooned all night - I had pillows and blankets back there, and although it was a pretty tight space, we were very comfortable. The only uncomfortable part of the night was needing to go to the bathroom. I have what are called 'suicide doors' on my truck. This means that in order to exit the cab, you need to open the front doors and then swing out the cab doors. I worked out a way to open the front doors while being in the cab - it wasn't easy but it was doable. Once I found my slip-on sneakers I would hurry the 50 yards or so to the inside of the Pilot truck center to the bathroom.

You may be wondering how I took a shower? The Pilot truck center had what I would call luxuriously big showers. You had to pay $12 each time you wanted to use one, but they were incredible. It was like going to the spa for me, the truck stop spa. On several occasions, a trucker would just give me one of his or her shower coupons. As I said before I met some really interesting and nice people during my stay. Several women truckers, truckers with their families and dogs with them, a trucker who worked for a certain infamous mob boss (and knew Donald Trump!).

As for work, I was extremely focused - I had good WiFi access, and I was able to perform my programming work, attend all my meetings and get my job done as well as when I was working out of my home in Jersey. There was only one person at work who knew that I was working remote remote, and she was always pretty astounded to hear about all the places I was working out of.

I was in extremely good athletic shape at this point in my life, and I kept up my training with a whole routine of outdoor, truck-oriented and jungle gym exercises.

My life felt full - my animals by my side, work was going great, working out was fun. I didn't care that people thought I was crazy for living in a truck stop, as long as I had my beloved animals with me, I could live anywhere.

I mentioned before that I felt pretty ostracized by most people around me, shortly before I left for life on the road I met my future boyfriend. I didn't think that my newfound connection with this man would continue once I hit the road. He was the only person however who checked in on my regularly while I lived at the truck stop - he was genuinely concerned and interested about my life on the road.

~~~

I left the truck stop one day after two weeks of residency there, not because I wanted to get out - but because the manager of the Pilot center had decided that he could get a little friendly with me. I didn't' feel so comfortable dodging his sneak appearances around my truck and the one time he tried to land a kiss on my lips. I think the guy was ecstatic to have a permanent female resident.

Our next destination was a campsite in Pennsylvania. Before we settled in at the campsite though, I just had to run a Battlefrog obstacle course race in PA. I was a regular OCR runner back in those days, and this race felt like a nice afternoon excursion for me before I hunkered down at the campsite for a few weeks. The animals and I pulled up in the Battlefrog parking lot in the grass field. I left the engine running with the AC blasting and kissed Ranger, Harlowe and Sapphire and told them I would be right back. I think if anything was a cue to get my animals to start whimpering and meowing, it was hearing the words "I'll be right back". Ranger started his chicken bleating sounds, and the cats were looking at me a little weird. I asked the race lot attendant to just keep an eye on my truck. And then I ran off to the start line, and ran a 4 hour race. Upon returning to the truck, the inside felt like a freezer and the animals' furs were very cold to the touch. They certainly weren't on the hot side during my race, rather they were curled up to stay warm. They were all super happy to see me, my heart was bursting to be reunited with them again after the 4 hour grueling separation.

Off we were then, with me covered head to toe in mud, to our campsite home...

When we arrived it was dark, and I had trouble finding our spot. It was also raining at a monsoon-like volume. As I pulled into the spot, I was overcome with an overwhelming desire to go to the bathroom, I also realized that my period was just beginning with gale-like force. Grabbing a flashlight I headed off in the driving rain to locate the bathroom a few hundred hards from our site. I started to feel really upset, I didn't know how I was going to erect our tent in this rain. I went back to the truck with tears streaming down my face - I was one hot mess of tears, rain, and mud. At some point, I can't remember now, when this occurred, I had put the cats in their cat tunnel outside. I think I did it expecting I was going to put the tent up right away. When I emerged from the truck after my hour-long crying episode the cats were nearly up to the their shoulders in water, the cat tunnel had flooded. But these kitties were not crying or howling, they just a look on their faces of patient resignation when I took them out and put them back in the truck. Eventually the pouring rain subsided and I was able to erect our tent home around 1 in the morning with a flashlight. I went to bed that night with my animal family, feeling very vulnerable, raw, and wishing that I had a real bed to crawl into with my fur babies.

The first night was our trial by fire intro to living in a campsite, everything had started wrong - but things got much better from there. I met people at the campsite who were helpful, friendly and interesting to talk to. The morning after our arrival, I fed all the animals and zipped up the tent with Harlowe and Sapphire inside, with Ranger by my side we walked over the to the camp lodge, which was a fair distance, through the woods and a field and over a bridge. The outside porch of the lodge would be my office for the next two weeks. I had called the campsite office earlier to confirm that that WiFi was workable from the lodge and they had assured me that it would be. However, when I set up my office on the porch there was no connectivity. It was a Sunday, but the staff was great - they dispatched their IT person to the woods on a Sunday and fixed the issue! On Monday morning, I was in the woodland office and working with Ranger lying right by my feet. At lunchtime, Ranger and I would walk back to the kitties in the tent and we would all have lunch together. My kitty, Sapphire, was very content to spend the day in the tent, occasionally looking out the screen panels at camp life going on around her. My other cat, Harlowe, though was a different story - she tried every possible way to escape the tent, she was intent on exploring life outside the tent. My cats are very good outside, and at the end of the work day I would let them out of the tent. They would stay on the campsite spot and explore only the area around our tent. That is until Miss Harlowe got a little spooked by our neighbor's kids and decided to head for the campsite hills one evening after our dinner. I called for her, but she did not return when I called. I wasn't too worried, as she had done this a few times in our Jersey City apartment. Both my cats used to go outside into the garden and backyard in the JC apartment - for the most part they would just stay in the backyard but occasionally Harlowe would take off to explore something further away. However, by around 10pm I started to get really worried - it was raining heavily again and Harlowe was not back home (in the tent). I went to bed that night with Ranger and Sapphire and just prayed to God that she would return safe and unharmed. At 2am I was awoken by a very insistent and demanding meow right outside the tent window. It was Harlowe! Instead of being contrite, or grateful to be back with us, she marched into the tent with her head in the air, all wet, and I could literally hear her saying "What are you fools doing?" That's my Harlowe!

Our campsite stay fell into a nice regular routine after the initial dramas. Kitties would stay in the tent during the day, while Ranger and I made our walk (commute) to the lodge office. I would perform my work on my laptop while Ranger lay by my feet. Office breaks would be to walk together through parts of the woods, with my laptop in my backpack. We would get 'home' at the end of the workday and the supper preparations would commence over the open fire. Each day I would prepare roast meat and vegetables for dinner. All my animals would be outside, lying on a blanket or inspecting some new area of our campsite. We were happy, all together in our home in the woods.

During our time at the campsite we met some nice people in the site and I even got to visit the singing rocks quarry one afternoon. As much as I had adapted to the difficulties of pure tent living, I decided that our next destination needed to have 4 solid walls around us (truck walls didn't count). I found a place on AirBnb in Altmar, NY. It was a cabin in the woods, it sounded great and it was very affordable. The animals and I packed up camp one afternoon and loaded up into Chuck, and drove the 7 or 8 hrs north to Altmar, NY.

The cabin in Altmar was a wonderful stay for the 3 animals and I. The pets were deeply happy in their new space. We had beautiful rituals together that included a morning walk with both Ranger and Harlowe in tow around the wooded perimeter of the grounds. No leash was required, we were in the middle of nowhere. Harlowe would just follow Ranger wherever he went. I loved these morning walks, and Harlowe insisted on always going with us. Her and Ranger would explore different areas of the woods together, both sniffing the same things, and jogging back to me in unison when I would call them back to the walk proper. I would work out outside, doing pushups on fallen logs, climb up trees, and do all other types of bodyweight and natural element types of training exercises. I also got a gym membership at a local gym in nearby Pulaski, but preferred then as I do now to workout outside. I remember this time in the cabin as deeply cozy and loving with my animal family. We would all snuggle up together on the couches and beds and just enjoy the presence of each other's company. There were no human visitors, except for the occasional very nice talks I had with the owner of the cabin who lived nearby, and my boyfriend who visited twice. I rode my motorcycle a lot in Altmar, exploring all the backroads I could, and unfortunately also dumped my Sportster for the first time in our gravel roadway going about .2 miles per hour.

During the evenings in Altmar I would play my bass and fiddle, snuggle with the the animals and talk to my boyfriend on the phone. We had a wonderful time in those woods for the 6 weeks we stayed there, but as with all our road destinations there came the time to pack up everything and hit the road again.

From Altmar, we then traveled to another AirBnB this time in Saratoga Springs, NY. During the 4hr trip, we had our first collective animal bathroom disaster of the entire time thus far on the road. I think I had administered Sapphire and Harlowe some kind of medicine prior to getting on the road, and both of them decided to spew diarrhea in their respective seats in the truck. The truck was all of a sudden suffused with the most horrendous noxious odor and I had to pull off the highway to deal with this situation. I remember crying and calling my boyfriend, I felt like I couldn't take it. Somehow this bathroom event just sent me over the edge. I was beginning to really fray from the stress of packing up everything at each place we stayed at, roughly a tempo of every 2-6 weeks. It's no easy feat, packing up everything you own into an F-150 including two feisty felines, a 75lb pitbull and a 500lb Sportster! I mainly viewed all of the events that happened on our trip as adventures, even the misadventures, however I could not deny that the packing up to go to the next location nearly made me nearly lose my mind each time.

Once the truck was all cleaned up, air freshener deployed, and my mind refreshed by the pep talk from my boyfriend, we got back on I-90. Sapphire was lounging in the passenger side seat, sprawled out in her cat bed like a queen on a throne being carried through a busy street, Harlowe was seated right up against Ranger in the cab seat, both looking so peaceful to be together and enjoying the road trip. It was such a blissful and perfect scene of all I could ever dream of for family life, that I took a quick video of it while driving. I will cherish that video forever and ever.

Our new home in Saratoga Springs, was in the in-law apartment of a house right across from the renowned Saratoga Race Track. The apartment was 1/2 of a gorgeous historic house, and my animals and I had the run of an upstairs and downstairs, a dining room, a foyer, a pantry, an outdoor kitchen and grill and the backyard. These accommodations didn't come with an indoor kitchen, but as it was summer-time and I was all about fresh grilled vegetables and meats, I couldn't have been happier preparing my meals on the large gas grill in the backyard. Not once, in the month we stayed in Saratoga did I ever feel feel the need to cook inside and I never ate out.  My animals loved being at this house in Saratoga, the cats would run up and down the stairs, and both the kitties and Ranger loved to be outside in the backyard together. Every day when I was at work, I would work out there and they would be sitting on the table or lying on a blanket on the grass, or spread out on the cool flagstone patio by the grill. My animals just loved to be outside with me, the cats didn't try to run off, and Ranger was as happy as he could be, meditating the whole time he was outside when he wasn't snuggling with me. I have such a beautiful photo and video from one of these afternoons - with the cats listening to the birds and natural sounds, and Ranger listening and meditating. My heard is filled with joy and peace just remembering the simple joy and beauty of these days spent together, in each other's presence out in nature.

We all would eat dinner together inside at the long dining room table, Ranger and the kitties eating out of their bowls on the floor by the table. It was during these dinner times that I experienced my first twinge of social loneliness on the trip. My host and her children would be in the house kitchen behind the dining room wall and door - I would hear their laughter and muffled banter, and I would sometimes feel this thud in my heart - the sound of my loneliness, which was comprised of my disappearance from society & no one to talk to during mealtimes.

Outside of these occasional pangs of existential  loneliness, I felt very content and alive to be intentionally undomeciled. My boyfriend came up twice to Saratoga while we were there, and we always had such a nice time - exploring the city, the architecture, Skidmore College and taking Ranger to Saratoga Spa Park. I befriended a woman there, an acquaintance of my host - and my new friend made it a point to really show me downtown Saratoga. I am so grateful to her welcoming warmth and hospitality.

There would be the occasions as I had in all our other locations when I would get on my Sportster and ride, exploring the new area. I found this part of the Adirondack Region very beautiful, and deeply enjoyed my motorcycle rides - what made them especially awesome was coming back to two cats and a dog who couldn't have been more happy and overjoyed to see me walk in the door.

It was in Saratoga that my boyfriend (also a rider) helped me to fine tune my unloading and uploading technique of the motorcycle on and off the back of my truck. Up till this point, I truly think I must have had the help of my guardian angel in this operation - I would go up and down the ramps into the truck in the most roughshod fashion, and it's amazing to me that I did all of this unaided, alone and in the most foreign places.

I have this funny photo of Ranger curling his large frame up into Sapphire's bed one evening, it is so funny as he looks so serious with his paws and body spilling over the edge of the bed. He had his own bed, and to this day I don't know why he insisted on getting in Sapphire's bed that particular evening.

There was one night when Miss Harlowe was still outside and had decided to roam further than the backyard, I was getting kind of worried by 11pm when she had not returned. I remember being filled with anxiety when I spoke to my boyfriend, and him saying to me calmly, "She'll be back soon." in his soft-spoken way. I don't remember if it was very early that next morning or sometime in the day of that following day, but sure enough, Miss Harlowe waltzed back into the house through the pantry door with that same insouciant look she had on her face the night she came back to the tent in the rainstorm - "What are you fools doing? Where is my dinner?"

This was not to be the last episode of me experiencing a harrowing moment of what I thought was a forever lost kitty, more of that to come later...

I loved our time in Saratoga so much, and I was at the same time growing somewhat weary of the demands of all this travel and continual packing and unpacking - that I decided I might want to look for something more permanent in the area. Much to my boyfriend's disappointment, I did not want to return to the city or its environs - I wanted to be with him, but I did not want to go back to the vortex of NYC.

One afternoon, I rode my motorcycle to the nearby town of Malta, NY - and by accident I stumbled upon a new development of townhouses off of Route 9. I thought to myself to just go into the development and inquire in the office about rentals. I always know when God has a plan for me, because He literally opens doors that are shut. The townhouse had some pretty strict rules about a couple of things - no evictions and no pitbulls. I thought that as I walked out of the office that at least I had tried, I felt disappointed though, as I had loved the townhome we visited. But the leasing manager decided to take a chance on me - my eviction was from years prior as for Ranger, the manager took a look at a picture of him and said "Oh, he looks very sweet - we'll let him in." I am forever grateful for the staff at the housing community, for giving me this chance to create a new home for myself and my animals. We signed the lease on a brand new duplex townhouse, it was incredible - so filled with light, beautiful fixtures, amenities and gorgeous rooms. I wouldn't be able to move in until months from the signing as they were still building and taking care of zoning issues. I was scheduled to move in during the bowels of winter, in early January.

I wasn't really sure where me and my animals would go to in the meantime, our time in Saratoga was drawing to a close and I literally threw a dart on the map of the Eastern Seaboard to determine where we would go next. Sebago Lake, Maine!

I secured a tiny house through AirBnB in Sebago Lake, Maine and after a particularly grueling and taxing packing sessions I loaded Ranger and the kitties into their respective places in the truck. I only now had the Sportster to load up into the back of the truck, with my new loading skills I got Bessie (my motorcycle) up pretty elegantly into Chuck's (my truck) bed. And we were off to Maine!

The ride to Maine was laced with lots of driving through back roads - there was no main artery that would take us to this location in Maine. The backroads were beautiful in the daylight, but when night took over I became disconcerted. It seemed as if we were the only vehicle driving through a very deeply wooded part of the country. I had to call my boyfriend and have him navigate me from afar. I kept getting lost when trying to just use the GPS on my phone on my own. My boyfriend did a wonderful job of both calming me and delivering me to my tiny house in the hamlet of Sebago Lake.

What a glorious tiny house and location this was! I awoke in the morning to shimmering trees just starting to bronze over in the burgeoning Fall. And the lake was right across the street from us! I quickly understood that Maine feels completely different than anywhere else in the country. It feels like it's been touched by celestial or alien hands, there is something otherworldly about it. I loved the tiny house and animals very much did also! It was a small space, but the animals just seemed so very happy and content in it. The walls were a bright pine, and the kitchen was quaint and had everything I needed. The little office area/kitchen nook had a large window next to it from which I could stare out over the beautiful lake. The kitties would always be nestled on the pillows during the day, usually one on each pillow. And Ranger would either be on the bed proper or on his bed on the floor. They could lay like this for hours, we were all so amazingly happy and content in our tiny house! Before and after work, I would take Ranger to walk along the lake shore. He loved these walks, he would dip in and out of the water and trot along the shore. My most happy moments contain these moments of time shared with my Ranger at this lake. It was always so quiet, nobody there, and Ranger and I would be together, just enjoying nature and each other's company. On the weekends I would sometimes bring a book from the little roadside book library, some coffee & lunch, and Ranger and I would sit on the dock that went out into the lake. It was as close to heavenly as I could imagine.

In the evenings, I would make tea and all the animals and I would be atop the bed together. My animals were never big snugglers with each other, they all needed a certain amount of space between each other, but they loved to all be together on the bed. I would read in bed with my tea with my happy animal family all around me, we'd all fall off to sleep together.

One day, I rode my motorcycle to Portland - it was an invigorating and refreshing ride. Partly through backroads and some on the highway, which I believe had a speed limit of 80mph! I had a lunch at a recommended restaurant, it was Norwegian food, so very delicious! But the best part of the ride was when I arrived back at our tiny house and all the animals came to greet me at the door with toys in their mouths. I will never forget the joy of that - Ranger shaking his toy at me and his tail wagging so happily. They kitties had their cat toys in their mouths and were offering them to me also. Joy beyond all joys! I will never ever forget that beautiful welcoming from my animal family in our tiny house.

Another one of the most special memories I have is when my boyfriend flew to Maine to spend a few days with us. I picked him up in Portland and drove him back to Sebago Lake. We spent the days in quiet, cozy perfection with each other and the animals. Ranger was so happy to see him, and they spent lots of time cuddled together. We took lots of walks along all different shore sections of Sebago Lake. The lake is incredible, and the different shores all have a different topography to them. We drove to LL Bean in Portland one day with Ranger to buy him a new bed. The bed was a deluxe couch-like bed. My boyfriend and I enjoyed our LL Bean adventure in their flagship store and Ranger was visibly excited when we put the rolled up bed with him in the cab of the truck. Ranger knew we had bought him a new bed and he was so happy - I don't know how I knew that Ranger knew this, but I have never seen him so happy and expressive over a material object I bought ever before. When we unrolled the bed when we got back at the tiny house, Ranger immediately got on it and just looked at both my boyfriend and I with such love in his eyes. This was a very special trip, I will never forget this time we brought Ranger the new bed and our time all together at Sebago Lake, Maine.

After 6 weeks at our tiny house, it was time to move on again - and this time we would be driving all the way down to Florida. Florida would be a our last destination before I moved us into our new townhome in Malta, NY. We first drove to NJ and on the way and my boyfriend gave me the news that his father had passed away. We met up with my boyfriend at a hotel in NJ, and it was a very fraught reunion - he was very upset. I departed early in the morning and headed South while my boyfriend continued to absorb the shock of his dad dying. It was one of our harder moments in our long-distance relationship thus far, I felt terrible as I was driving away from him. We drove to Dunn, NC where we spent the night at a truck stop. It was about 40deg that night and Ranger and I spooned together in the cab of the truck under a sleeping bag and blankets and the kitties slept somewhere in the truck. The next morning we drove down to Savanah, GA where I booked us at a pet friendly motel. That night me and the 3 animals slept atop a king size motel bed together. The final leg of our journey brought us to Indian Harbour Beach, Fl where my Mom lives. We would spend the next 3 months in my Mom's house. It would be my dog, 2 cats and her 4 cats all together. There was no adjustment period at all between the animals although they had never met, they just all got along from the get go. Ranger loved sitting by my Mom's pool with me, we spent most of our time together out there - while the cats would go in and out from the pool area to the inside. My most favorite activity with Ranger in Florida where our many trips to Dog Beach (Canova Park Beach). Ranger just loved being at the beach - he loved walking along the ocean's edge, smelling different sea objects as they had washed up onto the shore, exploring through the dune grass, and his favorite activity of all - meditating while lying next to me. Then as I do now, I feel most connected with Ranger when at the beach. This is our happy place, our special place. I would often pick up a coffee at Starbucks early in the morning and come down to Dog Beach with Ranger before work. Early mornings at the beach were so peaceful, and this time with Ranger was sacred. Ranger at the ocean, these are some of my most powerful and peaceful memories. I would also take Ranger on walks through the trails in my Mom's community. I feel as if he's still walking with me when I go on these trails when I visit my Mom now.

In the evening, my animals and I would all go on the king size bed together and fall blissfully asleep. If we didn't have a northern townhome awaiting us, I could have imagined that we might have continued to live on in Florida. Finding a home near my Mom's and my animals and I continuing our beach life adventure. I felt heartache for a lot of reasons when we began packing up to start the big trek north to the Adirondacks. My relationship with my Mom had started to heal during this time together, and I had been able to spend good time with my StepFather who was now in an assisted living facility. I felt like I was peeling away from the only real human closeness I had during this entire 9 months on the road, and headed towards a formidably lonely and unknown new start. For the first time, when we all packed up in my truck and headed out of my Mom's driveway I felt homesick and not very excited to go to our final destination. The drive up north was long, with a lot of time for thinking and reflection.

We stayed at a truck stop in Virginia one night, it was an exceptionally cold night. As we pull into one of the truck lanes and I'm setting up the truck for all of us to go to sleep when I notice that I don't see Sapphire, my white kitty. I frantically search the entire insides of the truck and she is not there. Horrible images swarm into my mind, of Sapphire somehow being left at a rest stop hundreds of miles back, perhaps even somehow climbing out a back window partially rolled down and being crushed on I-95 somewhere. The amount of horror and shock I felt could not really be adequately described. I got out of the truck, to let the cold air try to cool my feverish mind. I'm standing there in a state of shock when I see some white fur moving beneath the tractor trailer parked in the lane next to us. I couldn't believe it, here was Sapphire, outside walking beneath a truck. I quickly dove under the truck and scooped her up. How did she get out? To this day, I have no idea how Sapphire ended up outside the truck upon us arriving there just a few moments ago. She truly seemed to have proved a Houdini with this, I was relieved and grateful more than any words could say to have her back in my arms. Sapphire is also deaf, so I was so deeply grateful that she hadn't gotten crushed under any of the trucks rolling in and out of the truck stop. I also felt this deep surge of gratitude that our perilous adventure would be giving way soon to life in a solid house, where all my animals would be safe within a solid home.

The rest of the journey north, I spent in a particular state of deep gratitude for us all being together. When we got about 20 miles away from my new home, I pulled over into the Capital Region welcome rest area and started to feel anxiety. What if Ranger wasn't really welcome when we got there, after they said it was ok for this pitbull to come? What was I doing, moving so far from the only human family I had? Moving so far from my boyfriend? It was strange that I should feel this anxiety as we were about to move into a solid permanent home. I remember making a decision to lean on God in those moments, He had guided and protected us thus far, and I had the faith that he would usher us into our new life together. I took a few deep breaths and got back into the truck and drove the 20 miles to the driveway of our new townhome. The first thing I did was bring the kitties and Ranger inside. The space felt huge, with no furniture, but it also felt welcoming. Over the next few weeks we experienced snowfall, cold weather and blizzards like I'd never experienced before. Ranger absolutely loved leaping like a deer over the snow drifts in the field and woods near our home, he loved burrowing his nose in the fresh snow and snuffling and flinging the flakes into the air with glee. Living in Malta was the most intense experience I've had of the closeness and bonding of my animal family and me. Being there felt like moving to outer space though. It was probably the most alone and isolating 5 years I've ever experienced from a social and human perspective, but the most intimate experience of my animal family and God that I will ever know.

Afterward: After 5 years in Malta, my boyfriend and I finally moved in together in our RV and relocated in Newton, NJ. Ranger, Harlowe and Stripey made the move with us. Heartbreakingly, Sapphire passed away in the Malta home on November 19, 2019. So 2 of the musketeers made it to the next adventure plus my StepFather's cat Stripey, who I adopted after my StepFather passed away in 2017. I am so deeply grateful and blessed that Ranger was able to come with us in the RV. He lived from July - early September with us in the Newton, NJ campsite before traveling on to his next adventure on the other side.

God bless my beautiful animals, their deep companionship and friendship. The relationship I experienced with each of them while on the road together are precious jewels that I will treasure forever. I know that Ranger and Sapphire continue to be with us in spirit, and I know now that home is not a physical place for us, but a state of loving each other from the center of our hearts.

This writing is dedicated to my three beautiful musketeers: Ranger, Harlowe & Sapphire.