Driving 13 hours with two insane kittens was never going to be a picnic, but add in icy roads over 13 thousand foot passes and you end up with the ingredients for a nasty adventure.

At first I had the kittens in their Pet Taxi. They weren't thrilled about this, especially Mak who was whinning like I was taking him the the kitty inquistion. Fil was close to her normal, clam self, but there was a look of fear in those green eyes. All the way up the winding road to Flagstaff I was tempted to pull over and let them out, which I finally did when I got up there.

When the cats had run of the car all hell broke loose. Mak was signaling for turns and changing the radio. Apparently he doesn't like NPR. Fil was trying to surf the Pet Taxi which would lurch forward as she moved up to hang ten. It took about an hour for them to settle down and find a comfy place on my luggage in the back. At one point they were so comfortable that one of them used the litter box. I'm not sure which one, but I could smell the effort.

On the way through Tuba City, the weather started deteriorating badly. Gray clouds and bit of rain turned into a blizzard which made the decision not to stop at Monument Valley extremely easy. The kittens would take turns sitting on shoulder looking out the front window. And every so often Mak would just freak out for about 5 minutes before he was becalmed and went back to sleep.

Darkness started to fall around the Four Corners area and it snowed all the way through Cortez and into Durango. I've been in snow hundreds of times, even been in cars a few of those times, but until today, I hadn't driven in the white stuff myself. Subaru was great. I cranked up the heated seats and plowed through the blizzard.

I spent the night at the Adobe Inn in Durango. I had a nice room with 2 queen beds and pull out couch, but I couldn't sleep at all because Fil and Mak ran around the place like screaming banshees all night. I think the falling snow and the cold freaked them out.

In the morning the roads were icy. The windy pass up through the historic mining towns of Silverton and Uoray felt so dangerous that I could barely manage more than 30 mph even though the visibility was great and there were hardly any other cars on the road. The Subaru was great in the snow. There were a couple of times when I felt the car slip as I pulled around a harpin, but the ABS brakes kicked an I didn't have any problems.

After Ouray it was a clean sailing to Grand Juntion and up the I70 to Vail, which has to be one of the most scenic highways in the world. Not only is the highway itself amazing, a split level curvy thing, but it snakes up into the snowy valley along the headwaters of the Colorado river. I don't know if the kittens apprecited the view as much as I did. I think they were comatose at the time and ready to get onto a surface that didn't move around and stop suddenly for seemingly no reason.