I bought a 14-year-old Subaru Outback! It’s gold! It has 120,000 miles on it! Why would the owner of a shiny new Mustang do such a thing? Well, I need a road trip car.

You may remember that I was dreaming of a road trip last year and wondering how to get that much time off work. Since then I’ve found a job that will let me work from anywhere! So I’ve spent some time working from home, and now I want to try working from other places. (I figure I’ll start in the United States.)
The idea is to go clockwise and spend a few months in each corner of the country. So spring has been in Southern California, then I’ll spend the summer in Washington State (actually I’m driving up a bit early to visit Nene), autumn in New York City, and then winter in Florida. It’ll be a nine-month trip, from April 2022 to January 2023. (I’d originally planned to leave this coming weekend, but there’s a once-in-80-years snowstorm hitting Oregon and Washington, so I’m postponing the trip a week.)

In Washington I want to do outdoor stuff–take photos of rhododendron season, visit some national parks, maybe even the San Juan Islands? Plus there’s the lavender farms in Sequim and mind-blowing idyllic scenery on Whidbey Island. I also wouldn’t mind getting to know Seattle better. In New York City I want to do EVERYTHING. Food, Broadway musicals, sightseeing, learning the subway system, museums, parks, just wandering around and looking at stuff. Then there’s my favorite dry town, Ocean City, in nearby New Jersey. Plus fall in the Vermont or Main, which I haven’t seen before. And then in Florida I was looking for that blissful gulf beach experience, so I’m staying on one of the keys. But it’s near Sarasota, where they have all the amenities and vegan food, so I’m looking forward to trying that. (Josh says I picked places for this trip based on their “veganity.”)

Then as a birthday bonus (since my 40th birthday is this year!) I’m spending a month in New Orleans on the way home. New Orleans has been on my bucket list for a few years–it seems like everyone who’s been comes back raving about it. (Plus Pamela Adlon featured it in an episode of Better Things.) And New Orleans is supposed to have some incredible vegan food.
So my parents are car-sitting the Mustang, but what am I doing with the cats? Well, they don’t know it yet, but they’re coming with me! I feel crazy for planning to travel with cats, but after weighing the options, it seems like the lesser of all the evils. And it was a major reason for wanting to get the Subaru–there’s more room for hauling cats. Here they are on the mat from the Outback’s cargo area. It looks like there will be enough space for cats and cat accessories (food bowl, litter box, and water bowl).
Here we have Violet modeling the double-compartment pet carrier travel backpack (for carrying two cats at once), and Hugo lounging at the foot of the desk chair. (They don’t love being hauled around in their backpack, but they like it better than the hard-shelled plastic carrier I used to use.) For their time in the Subaru I thought I could cut interlocking foam mats into a frame for the litter box and the food and water bowls (so there’s nothing sliding around while driving). Fortunately the cargo area liner is removeable so I could haul it up to the condo and trace its outline on the foam mats.
Then in the car there’s a wire mesh pet barrier that keeps the cats in the cargo area. The backpack comes with clips that I can hook to the pet barrier’s wire frame to keep the backpack from sliding around. (The cats aren’t thrilled with the car either–they will peak out the windows and then go back to hiding in their backpack.)
Here’s the final setup with the food bowl, a no-spill water bowl, and a plastic bag-lined Amazon box for the litter box. (The pet barrier is supposed to be for dogs, so reviewers online said to wedge paper towel rolls along the sides to block the gaps if you are traveling with cats.)

As the launch date gets closer I feel more and more excited (although there’s definitely moments of “what am I thinking?”). I’m also feeling nostalgic for Long Beach. “I’m going to miss that bread place so much! Sure I go once every four years, but still!” But I know that there will be awesome things everywhere, and it’s going to be a lot of fun looking for them.
Subaru style! (Music from Bensound.com.) I joke about getting a Subaru when I already have a Mustang, but I went to college in the Pacific Northwest where everyone drove a Subaru. So because of my 2008 Outback I’m finally one of the cool kids.
By