My Cat Has Visited 30 States and 13 National Parks
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Folks don’t believe me when I say my cat enjoys traveling, but she does. And boy are we lucky.
Recently I posted a family photo of my partner, myself, and my cat at the Grand Canyon on a Facebook travel group. It blew up, and while most people enjoyed the photo, a few believed we were forcing our cat to enjoy America’s largest canyon.
It doesn’t help that FatFace has Resting Cat Face.
She looks miserable, despondent, or full of quiet rage in almost every photo we take of her. And since we apply human emotions to animal’s expressions, her perceived looks of annoyance must mean she’s actually unhappy, right?
Well, I hate to break it to you — she’s actually a very chill and happy cat. I know that’s hard for some people to believe. I know some people’s cats are assholes so they think all other cats must be assholes too.
However, we lucked out with a very non-assholey cat.
Many years ago, we met this remarkable creature in our back alley and nurtured her back to health. In return she’s given us complete love. It didn’t happen right away — it took about 8 months of earning her trust. Due to her lack of teeth and passive demeanor that allowed other ferals to bully her, we hand fed her wet food in our shed so she could have a safe space to grow beyond her 4 1/2-pound frame. After months of doing this, we opened the door to our house and she’s never left. In fact, she’s never wanted to leave. We offered to let her back out, but she found the indoors and consistent stream of food comforting. Then she realized how nice it is to have chin scritches, brushing, and a warm body to snuggle up to. Almost six years later, she’s a whopping seven pounds and queen of the household.
My partner and I travel a lot for both work and pleasure, and in the beginning of our time with FatFace we were able to leave her with friends. But then we moved to an area where we knew few…
