After months of planning, the day to start our Canadian Rockies trip has finally arrived. Mike’s dad, Mike, and I went to pick up the rental RV early in the morning. We started loading our clothes, food, a hibachi BBQ grill, and lots of necessary tools/items to the RV. We decided to keep Nemo downstairs until we’re ready to bring him into the RV. We packed the following items for Nemo:

Food—raw rabbit and chicken for about 20 days, 3 cans of Wysong Au Ju Rabbit (for when we don’t have easy access to raw food), 1 small can of Fancy Feast Beef (just in case we need something to entice him to eat).

Snacks/treats—Dried wild salmon (cut in bits), baked seaweed (my own snack but Nemo likes it), and Innova Evo kibbles (broken into small pieces).

Toys—furry snake, pin pong ball, mouse on a fishing rod.

Other—litter box, litter sand, litter mat, harness, leash, pillow case (of the pillow he sleeps on everyday), “The Love Glove”, food bowl, water bowl, and Holistic Aloe-vera Pet Skin Care Shampoo.

Unfortunately there wasn’t any space left for his crate so we decided not to bring it. Since he likes his backpack so much more than the crate we figured it should be OK.

After everything was all settled, we put Nemo in his backpack and headed for Kelowna, BC, our first stop.

Nemo slept through the first couple of hours of driving. I left the zipper of his backpack open but he wasn’t interested in coming out. A few hours later he started to become restless. He came out of the backpack and walked around the RV. He was very confused. He cried and howled. His breathing was uncommonly fast. I tried to comfort him but I got sick (motion sickness) myself. I had to go lie down in the bed. Mike was driving so he couldn’t help Nemo, either. Nemo crawled up above the basin, behind the faucet, and hid there all the way to Kelowna, crying and howling from time to time. The drive lasted about 5-6 hours.

Nemo came out-and-about at night, crying, after everybody had gone to bed. I came down from the bed above the driver to comfort him. He jumped onto the table to get a glimpse of the world outside the window. I left the curtain open so he could at least have a look at where we were.