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So am on a holding pattern of sorts.  The heat made me leave earlier then planned, as my oldest cat ‘Norm’ was showing signs of heat stress. I left mid-day thinking I would head for Congress, AZ and its SKP in higher elevation. Well… I missed the turn. That’s what I get for not going back to Phoenix and picking up Hwy 60 off of Hwy 303, which I normally did.  Darn.  So I kept booking, with the air conditioner going full blast, I could hear the mess behind me.  Poor old guy, Norm was vomiting, howling  & panting in misery… so stopped at a rest area on I-10 to see if I couldn’t ease some of his stress.  I just held the guy… with an ice pack and forced liquids down his throat…  Out in the middle of nowhere, I got one sick cat.  Tucker, my other cat, knew something was wrong, but he seemed ok.

Stayed that way… for longer then I normally stop, but wanted to see some sort of improvement before I went on.  Left and headed for Quartzside and some BLM land. Found a freebie spot north of town on US 95 at Hi Jolly BLM, but damned if the temperatures on arrival were sitting at 99ºF at 1800 (6 pm)  Nothing like going from a furnace to the oven. Found some shade, made another ice pack and pulled Norm to me. Lo and behold, now I have two sick cats.  Got more ice out and pulled Tucker to me as well.  In all these years, I have never had both cats on me at the same time. Surprisingly, they were ok, as long as I was right there with them.  Again, I was forcing liquids down Norm. Tried to do it to Tucker and he initially fought me but gradually he allowed me to give him some fluids. And that is how the evening was spent – holding my boys, talking sweet nothings to them…

I knew I had to get out of there, I had to keep driving to find cooler climes. So headed out, before sunrise, going due north – stopping to check on the boys periodically.  The temperatures were ok during the morning hours and Tucker seemed to improve as the day progressed. It got hotter the closer I got to Las Vegas, so headed for the Pahrump SKP. Got lucky, they had only 2 spots open, I got one of them.  The temps are hovering in the day time around the low 80’s – a considerable improvement, the nights are in the 40’s. I wanted to give the boys  2 nights & a day of non-travel, while doing that, got to studying the maps, distances and of course the weather.

Well… I have extended my stay here for now. I could have moved on for another 24-36 hours, but I had no desire to be hunkered down without hookups in snow. Yes, that’s what I said – snow. High winds, snow, rain – is slamming into northern California and southern Oregon and there’s no way I can make it beyond this area before the storm hits. So… in further studying maps, forecasts, I need to move to I-5 somehow or another to move north. That gets tricky, but can’t do anything about it for now. So will just let the storm move in and re-evaluate next week when I will leave and which route I will take.

And a final note… Norm has improved greatly. Caught him doing a chase with Tucker this morning. A very good sign.