Picking up the Kitty and Starting Home

After spending a relaxing afternoon and evening on Tybee Island, a friend drove south to Florida with me to pick up the kitty I was to transport to her new home.  We got off to a late start that morning and the drive to the kitty's home seemed to take forever.

Picking up the kitty didn't take too long, but there was a lot of stuff to load in the car and some rearranging had to be done.  It was well after dark when we got back on the road.

Unfortunately, some of the kitty's belongings were not very clean.  And I'm trying to be very kind here.  I think the kitty's owner was having trouble cleaning the litter box regularly and so maybe the kitty chose not to use the box regularly.  She used it consistently at my house but some of her belongings were soiled and had a very strong and unpleasant odor. 

After driving a few miles with the window down (only one of my windows, the one on the driver's side, goes down, the other one is broken and I haven't had a chance to get it fixed yet), it was decided that this simply was not going to work.  Even with the window down, the smell was very bad and I had about 1200 miles to drive.  Halfway home it was going to get very cold, much too cold to drive with the window down.  And even with the window down...

Yeah.  We decided we were just going to have to dispose of some items.  So we got off the interstate in search of a dumpster.  Of course, businesses don't like you throwing things in their dumpsters so it took a while to find one we could access.

By the time we got back on the road, it was getting late.

I decided I needed some iced coffee so got back off the highway to head for a McDonald's.  But then I saw a Starbucks.  It was going on midnight but there was a Starbucks and it was open.  So I decided I needed a sugar free vanilla latte.

Well, I think the barista used the regular vanilla syrup, not the sugar free.  I can't taste a difference but I was less than halfway done with it when I got sick.  Very sick.  I didn't vomit but I felt very nauseous and my stomach was killing me.  Plus, by then I'd been in the car for something like eight or nine hours, siting in one position, and my neck and shoulders felt like they were on fire.

I had to stop and rest.  I reclined my seat as far back as it would go, curled up on my side as much as I could, and finally fell asleep.  For like three hours.

I had hoped to be dropping my friend off in Savannah late Friday evening and instead it was early Saturday morning.  And by morning, I mean after sunrise.  Like, really morning.  Like maybe 10 hours later than I'd hoped. 

And I was still almost 800 miles away from home.