Sunday, August 19, 2007

Are We In Kansas Yet?

The Spotted Pair and I have been on the road for awhile now, but we're still on the Colorado side of the Colorado-Kansas border. For this, I particularly blame the hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic inching its way east to Denver on I-70 through the mountains. The scenery was gorgeous, and it was nice having some rain (I like places where it rains in the summer), but I really don't care to drive at a speed not much above that of your basic pioneer wagon train. I mean, if I had wanted to cross the country at that kind of speed, surely I could have found a historical reinactment group with a covered wagon to spare, and the rabbits could have spent their days climbing around the inside of the wagon chewing on boxes of books.
After all, most rabbits dislike car travel and Calypso Spots and Orion are typical of their species in this respect. They objected to being put in the back of the car in the first place, despite my having set up a nice little area for them with towels, litterbox, hay, and so on, and they spent the first day or two in complete rejection of the situation. Orion seemed to take the view that the world was ending or that at the very least he would soon be slaughtered, so he did not want to come out of the cage I had set in the rabbit area. Ms. Spots did not take quite such a dire view of the situation, but she was royally angered that her otherwise lovable human had planted her in the back of a car for an entire day and more. She was willing to eat the first night, so my only fear about her (a serious one) was that she might never forgive me.
Now that the Spotted Pair has kind of gotten familiar with the routine, they are still unhappy, but coping. They like to be out of the cage and resting on their towels, they gladly eat their hay, and sometimes they feel magnanimous enough to allow me to pet them. This evening, Ms. Spots clearly wished to be petted, although she was not quite ready to show her usual enthusiasm, so I had to be content with mainly petting her rump. She did incline her head somewhat in my direction, so I could tell that her heart was softening. Since she is normally incapable of being angry or distant for more than half an hour or so (this is about how long it takes her to get over a cross-country flight), I am relieved that we will probably be able to return to our usual relationship before long. Orion may have to be re-accustomed to his recent level of pettability, but I think that can be done. He is skittish but resilient. If Calypso Spots provides a good example, I expect he will eventually follow it.
I am displeased that we are now in the realm where flies want to join us in our travels, but since neither rabbit has wounds, this should not be a problem. Vigilance is the main thing when dealing with flies. I have had to deal with flystrike (maggots) on animals in the past, and I hope never to have to ever again.
But in general, I think we are traveling about as well as can be expected. The car was not really designed to travel laden with hundreds of pounds of Czech art books, but I did persuade it up the mountains, albeit sometimes in third gear at 40 mph.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Kristen said...

Poor bunnies! I hope the remainder of your trip goes more smoothly.

August 21, 2007 6:41 PM  

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