Who did NOT die! The training journal of not-so-fast runner and costume addict (Comments welcome)

[jmasgat]

Spectacular pictures! And good luck with the move. Lucky that you have the "heavy lifting" (literally and figuratively) done for you. My near-ish term goal is to move back to MA, but in the mean time, I keep trying to get rid of stuff--my ultimate goal is to pack and move one truck (Now if my DH will just come around!)

 

[The Expert]

THE MOVE IS HAPPENING! I repeat... THE MOVE IS HAPPENING! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

So much to wrap my brain around right now, but we're making progress. So far we have...

1. Found a temporary rental house that will take our six cats. We'll have a 3-month least with month-to-month extensions if needed until we find something to buy. We're still actively looking but a 60-day close is standard there even if we find something tomorrow.
2. Mapped the route (did y'all know TripTik still exists on the AAA app?!). I've marked campgrounds and Walmart parking lots along the way for us to crash at for the night. It should take about 3 1/2 days to make the drive, if we can get about 10 hours of driving in each day. Ugh.
3. In the process of selling my completely impractical Mustang GT convertible (most neighborhood roads are unpaved and it's winter 80% of the year in Vermont). The good news is, I think my aunt in Florida is going to buy it, so it'll stay in the family!
4. Bought a 2-door 4WD Bronco, so still get to have a fun car but it won't get stuck in the mud or snow. Yay!
5. Took the first two cats to the vet this morning and nobody lost any limbs or left bleeding (talking about the people involved here).
6. Ordered a super cool multi-cat carrier for the back seat of the truck. This will hold four of them. The other two will need to be in their own spaces anyway.
7. We've applied for the Vermont relocation grant, which would be a nice extra $7500 in our pockets if it comes through.
8. I've broken the news to my family and my beloved cat sitter.
9. We've started booking and eating at all our favorite restaurants.

And here's what is still left...

1. We are interviewing five moving companies in the next two days. Thankfully DH's new company is paying for that, so we should be able to have them pack and everything.
2. That said, we will need to take some things with us for the first few months, so we're getting a tow hitch put on the Bronco for a small U-Haul trailer. Sadly, that means DH and I will both have to drive as he'll have the truck and trailer. But it means we can split the cats between the vehicles.
3. Figure out what we need in the next few months and start packing that separately.
4. Two more vet visits for the four remaining cats -- booked for tomorrow and Friday.
5. Finalize our actual move date. It's looking likely that we'll be able to go at the same time and be there before he starts on May 15!
6. Meet with our local real estate agent to get this place sold once we're out.
7. Figure out the logistics for getting my Mustang to my aunt.
8. Find friends and neighbors to donate our freezer food to (or check with the local food pantry).
9. Announce this on social media and answer the 8743 questions people will have.

 

[azrivest]

Hey soon-to-be-practically-neighbor!

 

[The Expert]

Hey soon-to-be-practically-neighbor!

Yes! And I have never been up there, so a road trip will happen for sure.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Wow that’s a QUICK move!! Hope things go smoothly for you

 

[jmasgat]

Wow, you move fast (literally and figuratively!) Can I hire you to get some things done for me? Good luck!

 

[The Expert]

Wow, you move fast (literally and figuratively!) Can I hire you to get some things done for me? Good luck!

It's my DH you want to hire!

 

[The Expert]

Things are progressing quickly! It does look like things will line up for all of us to go at the same time. That also means we'll be out of our place in LESS THAN THREE WEEKS!

We've chosen a moving company (Allied) and they will be packing and loading around May 6-8. We've booked a site at the KOA about five minutes away and will stay in the trailer (with the cats) during that process. We should be able to finalize some things and hit the road on the 9th! It helps to have a timeline but we're also cramming a LOT into that so I'm feeling the pressure.

That should put us arriving around the 13th. The moving company will bring the rest of our stuff sometime after the 15th, and we have a storage unit lined up to use until we buy a house.

We met with our real estate agent to get all the sale paperwork done and set pricing for our condo. We decided to get a photographer in now to get some shots with furniture (shifting our moving crap around to stay out of the photos) rather than paying for staging. We should be able to list quickly once we're out. There's no real competition on the market and we are pricing it right, so we hoping it goes quickly just to take one thing off our plates.

By way of updates from my last post...

All the cats have been to the vet, and everyone has a clean bill of health. I also have records in-hand and vaccinations updated, so all good there. The cats also LOVE the big cat carrier for the truck, which we are leaving out for them to play in. I posted a video yesterday if you're curious. I think we've figured out who is riding where and in what enclosures. (Four will go into this mega carrier and we have two other pop-up kennels for the old lady and our shy girl.) I just want to keep everyone as safe and content as possible since it's such a long trip!

My aunt decided not to buy my car, but my step-dad wants it instead! Things are all set up and it will leave on a transport on Monday, headed to Florida.

We made an offer on a house we didn't love but would work for a few years. They got a couple of offers and we didn't feel strong enough to fight for it, so we bowed out. Still looking, but our short-term rental is set.

DH went through one of the storage units and I cleaned out my closet. We took some donation items to a charity drop-off and have another coming to pick up our couch that we're replacing.

Even though DH's company is paying for the relocation, we did buy some supplies from UHaul to pack up all our own artwork and TVs. I'm a photographer and we had 55 artwork items on the walls and in storage, and at something like $25 a box for the moving company to do it, that added up fast!

We do still need to physically separate the things we are going to need for the first few months, but we have a list going.

We moved and shortened our Teton campground reservation so we can get home before the moving company pack-up starts. As much as I really want to make this one last trip, I keep debating whether to keep it. But assuming we get everything done next week that we need to do, we'd just be sitting around waiting for the moving company anyway. And we do have to get the trailer out, de-winterized and set up for the move either way.

I announced on social media and am at a work gathering this week, so I'm getting all the questions now. It is finally starting to feel REAL!

 

[The Expert]

Here it is. The drive! We hit the road on May 9th and plan to be pulling into our rental in Vermont by May 13th. We've mixed overnight stops between friendly parking lots, fancy rest areas and the Jellystone Campground in the northeast corner of Indiana. We will see how the cats do and how much driving we can get away with, but this is a pretty workable pace.

The first day will be only about 5 hours, to get the routine down. Then we'll do a couple of 10 or 11 hour days, followed by a couple of shorter ones with the campground as a nice place to hang out. The last two days will be shorter -- about 6 or 7 hours each. If we find the cats are doing well and we just want to get there, we may plow through more miles and just get it done.

Stop 3 is a Maid-Rite! If you're not familiar with them, they specialize in the most amazing loose meat sandwiches (like a Sloppy Joe but not saucy like that). We grew up eating at one in Missouri, but they are down to just a handful of restaurants mostly in Iowa now. Thankfully DH had the forethought to look that up and time it just right! We also have a stop at 6 for a reproduction of the original Star Trek sets in some random town in New York. LOL! Not sure if we'll want or need it by then, but I had to at least note it just in case.

We're down to just a few weeks to go now! This week, we're packing up what we will need for the next few months and separating it from the rest of the stuff in the house. We also picked up the camper trailer from storage and have it in to get de-winterized and add another solar panel.

This Sunday, we head up to Grand Teton National Park in hopes of finding bears. Our plan is to come back home Thursday (or earlier if wildlife sightings are quiet) and park the camper at the KOA a few miles away from home. The packers come to pack up what we haven't separated on May 6th (next Saturday), so either late that Friday or early Saturday, we'll move the cats over to the camper to keep them out of the way. The moving truck gets loaded on Monday the 8th, and we're hitting the road on the 9th after some touch-ups and other last minute things. So we'll get a few nights in the camper with the cats to acclimate them before hitting the road.

So far they are doing well with the various carriers and things around the house, so hopefully they'll get used to the travel routine without too much stress. HAH!

 

[RuntheMouse]

Stop 3 is a Maid-Rite! If you're not familiar with them, they specialize in the most amazing loose meat sandwiches (like a Sloppy Joe but not saucy like that). We grew up eating at one in Missouri, but they are down to just a handful of restaurants mostly in Iowa now. Thankfully DH had the forethought to look that up and time it just right! We

This made me lol! We lived in Iowa about 10 years ago and everyone talked about Maid-Rite. We finally tried one and I am not a fan! Enjoy it on your epic road trip for your new adventure!

 

[The Expert]

This made me lol! We lived in Iowa about 10 years ago and everyone talked about Maid-Rite. We finally tried one and I am not a fan! Enjoy it on your epic road trip for your new adventure!

I grew up going to Maid-Rite and then ours closed when I was in high school, so there's definitely a nostalgia factor. Sorry you didn't love them! I'm very much looking forward to that stop.

 

[Mr_Incr3dible]

After 23 runDisney races and six years in the neighborhood of this board, I'm finally starting a training journal.

A little about me... I'm 51, married, no kids but we have six cats and are currently between dogs. I live in Salt Lake City and work remotely (as I did pre-Covid) doing marketing for a national animal welfare nonprofit, Best Friends Animal Society. DH and I travel extensively, and took an epic 16-day trip around the world for our 25th anniversary in 2019 and visited every Disney park in the world. (We'd been to them all before, but never in one trip.)

How I got into running (and rD)... I was one of those kids who avoided running and hated that time of year in PE when we had to do track. I was active, played softball, did dance and cheerleading, but never had any interest in running. I vaguely knew about the rD races as we visited WDW over the years, but I wasn't a runner so I never bothered to find out any details. Fast forward to spring of 2015, wandering around MK and seeing all these women (mostly) with race shirts and medals getting photos all over the place. Cool!
We decided we liked visiting that time of year, so when our 11 month DVC window opened we booked that same week. A few months later, I discovered that the last full day of our trip was going to coincide with the 2016 Princess 5K. I popped in here and discovered you could WALK the 3 miles -- that was just a park day! So, I figured why not do one of the few Disney things I had never done before? Plus COSTUMES?! Okay, I'm in. I managed to sign up, found a cheap tutu on Amazon and a Tink-themed tank top. I didn't train at all and pretty much didn't think about the race again until it was time to pack.

We hit the expo the afternoon before the race, and when I found out how early I was going to have to get up, I nearly bailed. In fact, I almost turned the alarm off the night before, but something told me to just go for it. So I got up, ate half a bowl of leftover mac and cheese (carb loading, I thought LOL) and went to the bus. I was by myself, but among new friends. Everybody was so happy and excited, and the atmosphere was so much fun! I got so caught up in the whole thing that I ran probably half the race, and I know my etiquette was horrible. (Sorry if you were there!) The only disappointment was that dumb plastic medal we got at the end. Knowing what the other bling was, I decided then and there that I needed to get a "real" medal. On the trip home, I discovered the Kessel Run and that was it. I HAD to have that Millennium Falcon medal!
I had never even tried to run, so how did I know I couldn't do it? I started C25K two weeks later and morphed that into the Galloway training plan, did a couple of local races and ended up doing ALL THREE Princess runs in 2017, including my first Half!

tl;dr I saw the bling in 2015, got FOMO, did the 2016 Princess 5K cluelessly, and was hooked!

I've done 23 rD races (see signature) plus several local 5Ks and 10Ks and three RnR Vegas Half Marathons. My first full was at WDW in January 2020 (record heat), and my first Dopey was January 2022.
Though I've managed to get some family to do the occasional 5K and even 10K, I mostly run and race by myself. I've very much enjoyed meeting the DISboard folks during the last few weekends, and even ended up running two races this past January with @Herding_Cats when we connected in the corral before the Half. It was fantastic to have someone with similar goals and speed to pass the time with and encourage one another.

Where I am now... I've struggled to keep running regularly if I don't have a race training plan to follow, so I vowed to fix that after Dopey this year so I wasn't always starting over. I did manage to keep running 2-3 days a week through spring and ramped up to 4 days by the end of August. (It helps I have a treadmill with iFit, so I don't mind running most of my miles on it.) I'm consistent but not fast. I still do intervals for my longer runs, but go by how I feel on the shorter ones. I plan to keep doing Dopey for as many years as my body and schedule will allow it. We even bought more DVC points to cover the extra trip. As for the other rD weekends, scheduling and theming will likely determine what I do.

I've tried all kinds of training plans, from make-it-up-as-you-go to Galloway to random things I've found online. Last year I had a virtual running coach, but never felt much individual attention. So I'm going back to @DopeyBadger and starting his plan this week. My goal is to update once a week or so, and as things come up along the way. Comments, recommendations and questions are welcome. Thanks for being here!

p.s. I'm curious who can name the source of my training journal title. Bonus points if you know! It IS Disney related (or at least adjacent).

The challenge of it is what got me to do a Dopey, plus all the medals (I’m rolling my eyes at myself for being so swayed by bling).
And I enjoy the costuming thing way more than I should.
We both did our first Dopey last year.
I’m jealous of the Millennium Falcon medal. That one looks so cool.

 

[Mr_Incr3dible]

THE MOVE IS HAPPENING! I repeat... THE MOVE IS HAPPENING! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

So much to wrap my brain around right now, but we're making progress. So far we have...

1. Found a temporary rental house that will take our six cats. We'll have a 3-month least with month-to-month extensions if needed until we find something to buy. We're still actively looking but a 60-day close is standard there even if we find something tomorrow.
2. Mapped the route (did y'all know TripTik still exists on the AAA app?!). I've marked campgrounds and Walmart parking lots along the way for us to crash at for the night. It should take about 3 1/2 days to make the drive, if we can get about 10 hours of driving in each day. Ugh.
3. In the process of selling my completely impractical Mustang GT convertible (most neighborhood roads are unpaved and it's winter 80% of the year in Vermont). The good news is, I think my aunt in Florida is going to buy it, so it'll stay in the family!
4. Bought a 2-door 4WD Bronco, so still get to have a fun car but it won't get stuck in the mud or snow. Yay!
5. Took the first two cats to the vet this morning and nobody lost any limbs or left bleeding (talking about the people involved here).
6. Ordered a super cool multi-cat carrier for the back seat of the truck. This will hold four of them. The other two will need to be in their own spaces anyway.
7. We've applied for the Vermont relocation grant, which would be a nice extra $7500 in our pockets if it comes through.
8. I've broken the news to my family and my beloved cat sitter.
9. We've started booking and eating at all our favorite restaurants.

And here's what is still left...

1. We are interviewing five moving companies in the next two days. Thankfully DH's new company is paying for that, so we should be able to have them pack and everything.
2. That said, we will need to take some things with us for the first few months, so we're getting a tow hitch put on the Bronco for a small U-Haul trailer. Sadly, that means DH and I will both have to drive as he'll have the truck and trailer. But it means we can split the cats between the vehicles.
3. Figure out what we need in the next few months and start packing that separately.
4. Two more vet visits for the four remaining cats -- booked for tomorrow and Friday.
5. Finalize our actual move date. It's looking likely that we'll be able to go at the same time and be there before he starts on May 15!
6. Meet with our local real estate agent to get this place sold once we're out.
7. Figure out the logistics for getting my Mustang to my aunt.
8. Find friends and neighbors to donate our freezer food to (or check with the local food pantry).
9. Announce this on social media and answer the 8743 questions people will have.

My Mustang convertible is impractical, but I love every top-down minute of it.

 

[The Expert]

tl;dr: I AM ALIVE AND WE ALL MADE IT TO VERMONT!
I did a daily vlog on all the socials so feel free to find them if you want to view all the gritty details and see cute cats. (@crosscountrycats on tiktok, @kim_captures on IG).

Part 1: FINAL PREP
After our quick jaunt up to the Tetons, we parked our camper trailer at the KOA a few minutes from our condo and got one last night in our bed in our home there with the cats. That was Thursday, May 4th. Then the real fun began! On Friday, we did laundry and packed up the remaining things we would need in our rental that we would haul ourselves. We moved the cats to the camper trailer and left them in their car carriers inside for a few hours while we grabbed some food and finished up a few other things. When we got back, they were relatively calm an we let them out to explore. We stayed there that night with them and by morning, they were pretty used to it. Interestingly, being used to living on the 11th floor, the sights and sounds out the window being much closer was quite an adjustment! Most loved the activity but a few were nervous for the first few days.

Saturday we had the packers coming to pack up everything that was left. They got there about 8:30 and were done in six hours with our two-bedroom condo and two storage units. We organized what we were taking and ran a few errands, then back to the camper for the evening.

On Sunday we picked up our little 5x8 foot U-Haul trailer that I towed behind my car. It's amazing how much you can get in those things! DH had the brilliant idea to tape out the interior dimensions on the floor and pre-pack everything. SO SMART! We even remembered to do it backward so the stuff we needed to go into the trailer first was in front. We took one stack at a time with our hand dolly and took about an hour to load it in. IT WAS FULL and we were knackered! Back to the camper for the night where the cats were very happy to see us.

The movers came Monday to load everything in the truck. They were making great time until they filled the truck they had brought and had to go swap in another (2 hour delay). We had hoped to do some basic cleaning and touch-up paint that night but by the time they finished it was too late. We did one last load of laundry and took proper showers before going back to the camper for one last night at the KOA.

Tuesday morning went over to the condo and touched up some paint and did some basic cleaning, took photos and said goodbye to the place. It was a bit emotional, tbh. There were a lot of memories made there over the last 20 years.
We went back to the camper to figure out the first load-in for the cats!

Part 2: THE MOVE coming soon...

 

[The Expert]

Part 2: THE MOVE
tl;dr: It went a little slower than we hoped but the cats did well. We were SO OVER IT by the end of day three. After one night at a rest stop, we bagged the idea of parking lot overnights and found campgrounds the rest of the way.

If you prefer to watch in video form, I did a daily vlog on all the socials so feel free to find them if you want to view all the gritty details and see cute cats. (@crosscountrycats on tiktok, @kim_captures on IG).

DAY ONE: Tuesday, May 9 (vlog link)
After our work at the condo was done, we went back to the camper and got it road ready and hooked up to the truck. We moved the cats into their car carriers in the camper, then moved them to the vehicles. They hadn't done that before, so it was a bit scary for them. We had three cats (Minnie, Bailey and Ozzy) in the long carrier that fit across the whole backseat of the truck and kept the sections open. I had Audrey, Tilly and Leeloo in individual pop-up crates in my SUV. Audrey is our fearless 21-year-old and insisted on riding shotgun. The other two were in the back with the seats laid down. In each carrier we put a small litter box made out of a cheap tupperware container with a litter pad and some pellets from their home cat boxes (we use Tidy Cat Breeze boxes). These worked pretty well for the trip. Leeloo was pretty vocal for the first few hours but seemed to like music over voices, so I found some tunes that seemed to help her calm down. Audrey had a bit of car sickness going up the mountain but was fine the rest of the trip.

We only went about five hours this day to get ourselves used to the transitions and the cats used to moving back and forth. We also didn't get going until about 2pm. We stayed at a KOA just off I-80 in Rawlins, Wyoming. Moved the cats back into the camper in their carriers and quickly discovered the pop-ups from my car didn't all fit. Tilly is semi-feral so she stayed in her pop-up for the whole trip. We put a big bin in the small camper tub and her crate on top of that. We ended up leaving the other two crates in the SUV and moved Audrey and Leeloo with smaller carriers.

As we had hoped, once they all got back in the camper, they were in their safe space and calmed right down. They were also hungry by that point and everyone gobbled down dinner and quickly crashed from the excitement of the day. We slept well too after all the work up to that point.

DAY TWO: Wednesday, May 10 (vlog link)
Day two was our first long one: almost 700 miles! We started in Rawlins, Wyoming, drove through all of Nebraska and ended up just over the border in Iowa. After a light breakfast to avoid car sickies, the cats settled in to the routine. I wouldn't say they loved the riding part, but they got used to it. Leeloo was still very vocal for the first few hours and then off and on all day. I discovered if I turned her crate so she could see better out the front, it helped. And Tilly is shy and didn't want to see anything, so turning her to the back worked great for her.

Hilariously, in the middle of that boring drive through Nebraska, Dwight Yoakum's A Thousand Miles from Nowhere came on the radio and I had to do a bit of a karaoke duet (see video).

This night was our first planned roadside stop rather than a campground. I discovered in my pre-trip research that Iowa had some initiative to spruce up their rest stops a few years back. They're rather fancy, with showers, wifi, dog parks, picnic areas, RV dump stations, vending machines and exhibits. So we tagged one just over the Iowa border on I-80 eastbound. And yes, it was a fancy rest stop but also full of crazy loud semi trucks all running generators. The cats were super confused by the noise but were hungry and tired enough that they ate and slept anyway. But Minnie Mouse was OBSESSED with the trucks! She sat at the back window most of the evening watching them come and go. You can see her in the window here:


We slept surprisingly well, with all that white noise, but got up early as we had another longer day and wanted to get to the next campground with enough time to enjoy it. (Spoiler: we didn't.)

To be continued...

 

[azrivest]

I watched your IG reels and loved them. Really interesting to read this too. It was fascinating to read/watch about the move with 6 cats. They are just so freaking cute.

 

[The Expert]

DAY THREE: Thursday, May 11 (vlog link)
The day we discovered Leeloo has specific musical preferences: 80s pop, 80s/90s country, early New Wave, Van Halen (David Lee Roth only). Definitely no metal and no Rick Astley.

We got out of the rest area by about 7:30am and drove across Iowa. We stopped in Davenport for Maid-Rite (yum!) and then CRAWLED through traffic around Joliet (south of Chicago) for almost two hours. It was so frustrating! We had booked a site at the (licensed) Jellystone Campground on the far east side of Indiana in hopes we'd get there by 5:30 or so. We didn't get there until almost 8, but still made the best of it with a campfire and s'mores. They gave us Yogi Bear can koozies and we had passes to their attractions (water park, mini golf, etc) but had not planned to take advantage of any of that. We just wanted a decent, quiet campground and we got that.

We had about 13-13.5 hours left at this point so we had the conversation about whether to power through or break it into two stops. After the traffic that day, we figured the further east we went, the more cities and populated areas we would be going through, and the risk of more traffic was likely. So we mapped out about 8 hours for the next day, putting us near Utica, NY. We found a huge parking lot just off I-90 with a Walmart and Bass Pro Shop, both of which allow overnight camping.

DAY FOUR: Friday, May 12 (vlog link)
We planned to sleep a bit later this day but the sun came up early and the cats were asking for breakfast. We had been feeding them light in the morning to avoid car sickness and that was working well so we kept it up. We got on the road by about 9 and figured we'd be to Utica around 6-6:30 with fuel stops if we didn't hit too much traffic.

I should mention at this point that most days we made sandwiches and packed snacks, so we weren't making full stops for meals. The truck got terrible gas mileage towing the full trailer and with the hills and wind early in the trip (about 8mpg) so we were stopping for DH to fill up every 2.5-3 hours.

This day we quickly crossed from Indiana into Ohio, drove through a small corner of Pennsylvania and most of upstate New York. (My red Bronco decked out in Chiefs gear got me some fun reactions through Buffalo!) We realized we were making really good time and would be to our stop by about 5:30pm and did not want to spend 14+ hours in a Walmart parking lot. Between Alexa in my car and Android Auto, I managed to find and call a small campground and book a space just north of Utica in the Adirondacks. They weren't full so even offered us a double spot to park the car and U-Haul trailer right next to the camper. It was perfect! We got there before 6 and had a nice relaxing dinner over the fire.

We only had about 4.5 hours left to go!

 

[The Expert]

DAY FIVE: Saturday, May 13 (vlog link)
We used the dump station a the campground since that was our last night in the camper and we wanted it ready for storage. Since we had less than five hours to go, we found a diner for a proper breakfast and then started the drive about 9-9:30am. We were so glad we hadn't pushed through as these last few hours were all mountain roads through the Adirondacks and small towns. We made it to our rental house about 2, where the owner met us to show us around.

We set up a "base camp" in one of the bedrooms and moved all of the cat things from the camper in there: litter boxes, blankets, beds, and all the marinated things that smelled like them. I also sprayed some pheromone spray around the whole house. We brought them in in their car crates and left them in them in base camp for a few hours as we did with the camper.

DH and I set about emptying the camper and about half the U-Haul with the things we knew we'd need right away. We cleaned the camper out and locked it up in the driveway. (Thankfully our rental house has a nice big driveway and the neighbors are cool with it being there.) We went back in the house and let the cats out in their base camp room. Like their first encounter with the camper, they were a bit nervous but okay. We left them in that room while we ran and got some food. We got back and fed the cats in their base camp, then let Audrey out because nothing ever phases her. We showered (yay) and got a good night's sleep.

DAY SIX: Sunday, May 14 (vlog link)
After feeding them breakfast in base camp, we put Audrey back in there and emptied the rest of the U-Haul trailer. There are several things we're leaving in boxes until we get to the house, and thankfully there is good storage here. We turned the U-Haul back in and came back to unpack what we would need, stashing the boxes for when we move to our house in a few months.

I checked on the cats once more in base camp and left the door open a few inches. This way they could see and hear what was going on and come out if they wanted, or stay safe in there if they didn't. I moved a few things out from base camp and around the rest of the house, and we had set up their litter boxes from home. It didn't take long before most of them ventured out. Ozzy was our last holdout, but as we were going to bed, he appeared on the cat tree in the living room! By Monday morning, I was able to change base camp into Tilly's room, locking the rest of the cats out and letting her out of her crate finally. She's doing great so far.

DH started his new job on Monday and I went back to working from home in a whole new space. It still feels weird, like we're on some surreal Airbnb vacation with all the cats, or like we're still camping (it's a bit chilly, we don't have all our stuff, and there's no dishwasher or AC). But I'm so pleased and proud with how well the cats did overall and how smoothly the drive went. There's still a ton to do and we won't feel settled until we are in our own place in July, but WE MADE IT!!! Thanks so much for following along.

 

[The Expert]

I watched your IG reels and loved them. Really interesting to read this too. It was fascinating to read/watch about the move with 6 cats. They are just so freaking cute.

Oh thank you for watching! They are super cute and I'm so proud of them for handling this all so well.

 

[The Expert]

Holy cow, has it seriously been TWO MONTHS since I posted to this thread?!?! I miss you all!

Good news, we are in our actual home. Our stuff is all here out of storage. The cats are pretty acclimated. We're about 80% unpacked. We did not flood! Our gym is set up, including my treadmill. I'm almost out of excuses not to run.

I'll post a much more detailed update soon!