Leaving Oregon and Moving Ten Cats Cross Country

How to move ten cats from Oregon to Pennsylvania?

My original intent was to drive the cats in my Mazda Speed 6 and tent camp along the way. I wrote about the problems with the trial run in the tent in an earlier post. When I realized camping wouldn’t work, I tried to buy a van, but I couldn’t get financing.

The airlines required all cats be vaccinated and certified healthy by a veterinarian. I refuse to vaccinate on my cats, and I wasn’t in a position to pay to have ten cats examined let alone flown cross country.

Then I called car rental agencies for information on their payment policies. I could pay with cash, check or credit card. If I used anything but a credit card, the agency would run a credit check. If my credit was below a certain threshold, they wouldn’t lend me a car. I might drive off to Mexico with it. So that was out.

The only option left me was to ask my friend Tom to fly out, rent a car and drive back with me, which he did. Tom and his partner Mike flew into Portland on Sunday, November 2, and rented a vehicle. Tom was supposed to rent a van, but the agency suggested that an SUV would provide more space.

My friend Robbie and I drove up to Portland to meet them and also because in all the time I lived in Oregon I had never seen Powell’s Books. Their inventory is approximately 70 percent used and their store consists of several floors, the various sections color-coded so you don’t get lost. I bought five books from the health section.

Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon

Robbie and I then drove to the airport to meet Tom and Mike, and we led the way to Jakes Restaurant for dinner (which I have just discovered is supposedly one of the top ten seafood restaurants in the nation). The food was delicious, especially the sourdough, and the company was even more delicious. Good friends breaking bread.

Marshall brings my last Caesar salad

Monday morning Tom and Mike helped me load my remaining belongings onto the second trailer. We visited Robbie’s Windowbox Cafe. Robbie’s is where I met the people who would later become my friends.

If you’re looking for a place to meet people in Veneta, have a great cup of coffee, use free wireless Internet, talk or debate with intelligent people, then Robbie’s is where you go. Stop by some early morning and be entertained as the locals argue politics, current events, whatever. And jump right into the conversation. They won’t mind. I miss Robbie and her shop most of all.

Our Daily Bread

We three, along with a friend named George, then went to lunch at Our Daily Bread where I ordered my favorite Caesar salad from my favorite waiter, Marshall. Our Daily Bread is a small restaurant on Territorial Road housed in a renovated church. The food is good (not great) and the ambiance and service are excellent. I recommend the Caesar salad (light on the dressing), the McKenzie Omelet and the Featherbenders Grill sandwich. (Watch out for the soups. The cook relies on heavy cream to flavor and thicken most of them.)

Now it was time to load ten cats into an SUV and depart Oregon.

Continue to Part II.