My fiance and I moved out to San Diego recently with our two little sweeties. So far things are going well, and they are enjoying life "underground." Our main concern right now is to find a trustworthy ferret sitter. We tend to do a lot of travelling on the weekends, and we like to have someone come in to play with the little ones if we are going to be gone for more than one night. We would love to trade ferret sitting with anyone in the northern region of San Diego. We would also be grateful if anyone could recommend a good professional pet sitter who is used to dealing with ferrets. BIG has generously offered to forward messages to me if you would like to respond privately rather than posting to the list. After some debate, we decided that the best way to get the little guys into California would be to drive out here with them. My parents tested the route before we came, and it worked very well. We drove out to Las Vegas, and then we took 95 south until it hit Route 40 just west of Needles. We took 40 west to Barstow and then went south on Route 15 down to S.D. We saw several field mice, hares, and coyotes along the way, but no people. Just to be safe, we did the drive in the middle of the night. We tuckered the ferrets out before crossing over, and then we stuffed all the pet supplies in the back of the trunk while the little ones slept soundly on the passenger's lap. We took seven days to drive across country, and that also went better than expected. I didn't want to keep the ferrets in their travel cage the whole time, so we stuffed blankets around the edges of the seats to create a "wall" between the front and back of the car. We put leashes on the ferrets, and the passenger sat in the back seat with them to make sure they stayed out of mischief. For the most part they did a good job of sleeping during the drive and playing at the rest stops. For lodging, we found it easiest to stay at Motel 6's. They are generally cheap, clean, and easy to spot from the highway. Best of all, they all accept pets for no extra charge. The only scary event during the trip was when one of our guys got a tic while playing at a rest area. We were in Oklahoma in the middle of hurricane season, and we had to swab alcohol on the tic while a beating rain storm started up all around us. Fortunately, the ferret suffered no ill effects from the tic bite; he was simply annoyed at us for swabbing this awful smelling stuff on his back. Dooks to all, Julie and the anonyferrets [Posted in FML issue 2727]