Anyone who’s ever packed up the car for a cross-country road trip knows the drill. Snacks, playlists, a rough plan to hit as many scenic stops as possible, and if you’re an animal lover, maybe a pet or two riding shotgun. That’s exactly the trip Nikki Bolen and her boyfriend were on, driving back from Los Angeles with a goal of hitting as many national parks as they could along the way. It’s the kind of trip a lot of us dream about, windows down, open road, no real schedule to keep.
Things took a turn while the couple was camping outside Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, reported WCCO – CBS Minnesota. Bolen had brought along her two cats, Louis and a three-year-old domestic shorthair named Farage, for the ride. Waking up around 5:30 in the morning, she found both cats had wandered off from the campsite. Louis turned up nearby, but Farage was nowhere in sight.
What followed was a search that most pet owners can only imagine, and dread. Bolen combed a seven-mile radius around the campsite before facing the kind of decision nobody wants to make on a road trip: call off the search and get back on the highway toward home. Park rangers didn’t offer much hope either, telling her the odds of finding a small housecat in that terrain were slim.
Forty days later, Farage turned up. Somebody found her and brought her to the local humane society, and Bolen wasted no time getting back in the car for a 16-hour drive from Minnesota to Colorado to bring her cat home.
A Long Drive Made Worth It
There’s something fitting about a road trip cat getting rescued by way of another road trip. Bolen didn’t wait for shipping arrangements or ask someone else to handle it.
She got behind the wheel and drove through the night, which honestly tracks for anyone who’s ever had a pet emergency call while three states away from home. You don’t think twice, you just drive.
How Farage Held On for 40 Days
Domestic cats aren’t exactly built for a month and a half of wilderness survival, but Farage apparently had other plans. She came back a little underweight, which makes sense after over a month fending for herself in Colorado’s high desert terrain near the dunes, but otherwise healthy.
Cats have a well-earned reputation for being tougher and more resourceful than they get credit for, and this one just put that reputation to the test in a pretty extreme way.
The Reunion
By the time Bolen reached the humane society, it had been over a month of checking shelter websites and social media for any sign of her cat, mostly turning up nothing but near-misses and false hope. The actual reunion was, by her own account, tears of joy. Considering the drive alone was 16 hours each way, that’s a serious amount of windshield time invested in getting her cat back, and by the sound of it, worth every mile.
Farage is back home now, presumably back on regular meals and reconsidering her stance on camping trips. As for the wildfire smoke currently hanging over the area, she might be forgiven for missing those clear Colorado mountain views just a little.