Washing a Cat and a Few Changes of Plans

Have you ever tried to wash a cat? If so, you know they hiss, spit and do everything in their power to keep from getting in the water. At first, it's comical and you talk soothingly to the cat and tell him or her everything will be OK, you're just trying to help, but after awhile you just have to take the proverbial bull by the horns and dunk the cat and hope he or she forgives you later. Apparently, in my daughter's previous life she was a cat...

If you remember from my previous blog, we were in Texas at the KOA (yep, the one less than a mile from Folsom prison), and Mommy was SO excited to discover this campground had not only a shower, but a beautiful, "like-home" shower to boot. However, despite nearly 7 days without bathing, Janan did not share my enthusiasm. She went to the shower hissing, spitting and doing everything in her power not to get into that water. Mama talked soothingly at first, and then just tossed her in. Let's hope she forgives me...

Once clean, we headed out of Texas for New Mexico to visit the

Petroglyph National Monument. Wow, what an amazing place. The over 20,000 petroglyphs made me feel a real

connection to the people who put them there thousands of years ago. Pictorial representations of animals, people's handprints, plants and so much more adorn the stones throughout the park. It was pretty amazing. Janan & I had fun trying to figure out what the pictures were and Janan got her 3rd JR Ranger badge.

Originally, the plan after Petroglyph had been to head to the Petrified National Forest in Arizona. But, on the way into New Mexico we had stopped at the visitor's center and Janan found a brochure for a wolf sanctuary in Candy Kitchen (yep, that's the REAL name of the town!) and really wanted to go. Why not? We're traveling cross country on our own time, right? So, we chucked the AAA Triptik, updated Mama's TomTom and headed for Candy Kitchen, New Mexico.

Though we arrived after 8:00 p.m., it was still light enough to get our tent up and light a roaring fire and roast marshmallows. As we got settled, we could hear the wolves howling in the background and Janan loved EVERY minute of it. We decided then that we would spend at least 2 to 3 days at the wolf sanctuary campground and visit many of the local attractions in the area (believe it or not, there are quite a few!)

The plan for the today was to do the tour of the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary and then visit The Ice Caves & Bandera Volcano and, finally, the local Zuni nation either tomorrow or the day after as we headed for our final stop, Tucson.

Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as planned. After getting up,

Janan started complaining of being very cold (for those of you who know her, she wears no socks and short sleeves in Michigan winters, so she's not ever cold) and just couldn't get going (despite our many exciting plans for the day). Then, as we started to walk down for the tour she began complaining it was hard to breathe, her head hurt and she felt sick.

Needless to say, Mama had a moment of panic. I thought she was having some type of anaphylactic shock reaction to a bug bite or something, had no cell service and discovered, according to my TomTom, the closest hospital was an hour and a half away down a mountain. Thankfully, the folks at the sanctuary and seen this many times before and kept me from calling for a helicopter to get her off that mountain (yeah, us Mama's over react like that sometimes.) They called it 'Elevation Sickness' (Altitude Sickness...tomato, tamahto, right?) Whatever you call it, it's scary. We did take the tour of the sanctuary (I HIGHLY recommend everyone visiting there...these folks are doing amazing things for abused and abandoned wolves) and the entire tour group was so accommodating they let Janan sit at each enclosure and took some extra time.

After that, Mama packed up while Janan slept in the car and we headed straight for Tucson. Janan slept nearly the entire trip and has run a fever all day, but once we were at a lower altitude she claimed she felt 'all better'. Mama's watching tonight and if the fever hasn't broken by morning, we're headed to the local Urgent Care Center.

Thanks everyone for following our trip. Despite the slightly scary ending, we truly had an amazing time. I know it's something we'll both remember for years to come.