Well, we finally got to go visit our ferrets Lami and Sid in Illinois and I
thought I would share with you people our experiences on the way.
 
We left Fresno, CA, Friday March 21, 1997 for O'Fallon, IL.  Friday morning
at six o'clock, my husband and I and our three teenagers piled into our Ram
Charger and left Fresno.  We knew it was going to be a very long trip, but
we were willing to do whatever it took to visit Lami and Sid.  When we got
to Mojave, we encountered a detour that took us 2 hours out of the way and
my husband threatened to turn around if there was another detour.  (Just
kidding) After that the trip there was long but uneventful.  Once we got to
Missouri, we only took the wrong exit once, because of constructions going
on and we finally made it to Margie's on Sunday afternoon.  Of course we
lost 2 hours in the process.
 
We got to stay in Illinois for four glorious days.  We played with Lami and
Sid and of course Margie's other 12 ferrets all day long, as long as we
wanted to.  At this point I do have to apologize to the Peterson's for never
visiting them in St. Louis.  We just wanted to get as much time in as
possible.  This ferret fix has to last us for quite some time. :(  Lami and
Sid were great, Margie is taking very good care of them.  Lami and Sid love
gummi bears, so we brought them some gummi worms (all we could find), the
problem was that they tried to swallow them whole and choked on them.  (I
visit my ferrets, and the first thing I did was trying to kill them.)  After
that we stuck to fruit loops for a treat.  We found out that all the ferrets
had different preferences as to what color they would steal out of the bag.
We spend four days, playing with ferrets and visiting with Margie.  We even
went to pet stores to browse and saw the cutest little ferret, he was dark
brown with little white toes and white tips on his ears.  I wanted to buy
him for Margie, because she was going to be adopting out four of hers, but
she would not let me.  (I know, I know, we are not suppose to buy ferrets
from pet stores, but he was sooo cute.)  Anyways, we did not buy him.  On
Thursday morning, we had to leave for home.  (Lots of tears.)  Lami and Sid
looked at me like I was going to abandon them again, when we said goodbye.
Their little eyes were looking at us so sad.  It was the hardest thing, not
to just pack them in the truck and take them with us.  We sure are missing
them and Margie.  On the way home, we went throught Kansas and picked up
four little passengers from Lynda and Troy Lynne (sp?), Walter (the biggest
ferret I have ever seen, my kids renamed him Whopper), Felix (looked just
like our Lami), Nadia (a tiny little silver ferret) and Raven (a small dark
sable).  BTW, Lynda and Troy Lynne are two great ladies, I cannot imagine
taking care of that many ferrets.  WOW!  The first half of Kansas we had
side winds from the north at about 60 miles an hour and the second half
through Kansas, the winds came from the south at 50 miles an hour (even tire
wear?).  The winds stuck with us all the way through Colorado and Utah.  At
Utah, we met a German family at a rest stop.  They had two little boys, 7
and 4 that wanted to pet the ferrets.  The older boy was a little afraid of
them, but the little four year old just loved them.  (I was holding the
ferrets while they petted.)  She little boy just fell in love with Raven,
she even got three kisses from him.  (Don't worry they weren't biters, they
would kiss you to death.)  The mother and father even knew that they were
ferrets, and the mother took pictures of Walter, Felix, Nadia and Raven.
What great little ambassadors these ferrets were for ferret ownership!  I
think the little boy wanted to take Raven home with him. :)  I can
understand that.  After the rest stop, we encountered a snow storm.  My kids
were so excited, they never seen falling snow before in their 14 and 15
years of life.  My husband wasn't quite as thrilled, he had to drive
throught that mess.  When we got to Vegas, we had to give up our four little
passengers, which hardly spend any time in their carrier on the whole trip.
We decided to stay the night in Vegas because it was late.  The hotel we
went to had one of the rudest clerks at the front desk that I have ever met.
If we wouldn't have been so tired, we would have walked out.  (It was about
11 o'clock.)  At two o'clock in the morning we were awakened by the people
in the next room argueing or should I say yelling at each other.  I thought
they would eventually shut up, but after half an hour of this, they decided
to start rapping about guns and killing whities and I called the front desk.
It took security another 15 minutes to finally come up and tell them to keep
it down.  We will never stay at that hotel again!  The next day we decided
to let the kids play on the midway at Circus Circus because it had been such
a long trip and they were pretty good most of the time.  So we left Vegas at
about 3 o'clock.  Everything was fine until we got right outside of
Bakersfield, CA 104 miles from home, THE ENGINE IN THE CHARGER BLEW UP!!
Here we were at 8 o'clock at night stuck in what seemed to be nowhere, well
Bakersfield.  Thank goodness we had our cell phones with us and my husband
called Mr. Rescue.  They found us a tow truck that took us all the way to
Fresno for a price.  He brought a flat bed, so the kids and me could stay in
the truck, not enough room in the tow truck.  All we wanted to do is get
home.  We went over 4600 miles, just to break down when we were almost home.
Go figure.  I guess this trip is going to cost a little more then what we
were counting on. :(   At 11 pm, we finally got home, dead tired and
exhausted.  What a trip.  But let me tell you, we would do it all over
again, just to see Lami and Sid.  They are part of the family.
 
Let me tell you ferret lovers out there, we did not mind making the trip,
but if California doesn't legalize ferrets this time around, we are out of
here.  Arizona is looking really good, Missouri and Oklahoma were looking
pretty good too.  I don't care where, but we will move.
 
Sorry this is so long, I just wanted to share this experience with you, so
you can appreciate you're being able to hold your ferrets everyday.  Not
everybody can.
 
Thanks for listening,
 
Ilona, Ferretless in California
[Posted in FML issue 1889]