Here and meow
Lee Hodges, 33, from Birmingham, thought his roadtrip was going to be the cat’s pyjamas...
Listening to the announcements on the radio it was clear that my North American road trip with my girlfriend Willow wasn’t going to go as planned. The pandemic had hit us like a brick, as it did the entire world.
‘We can’t leave her,’ Willow whispered, cuddling our new family member, Aimee the cat.
Neither of us knew what to do, now that lockdown was coming into action across the country.
What we did know is that we weren’t going back home and leaving our little fur baby behind.
In August 2019, after years of planning and preparation, Willow and I started living our dream of travelling across America in a van.
We bought a rickety old VW camper in 2015 and Willow put her heart and soul into making it our home over the next two years.
She worked as a motor vehicle lecturer at a mechanical college, so she took it there to repair.
After putting our home back in England up for rent, we were ready for our big adventure.
We had to say goodbye to our two beloved cats back home which we lived with.
It was quite a shock for both of us how much we missed them both.
So, early on in our trip we decided to adopt a cat to take with us on our travels.
When we got to Washington DC we came across Aimee.
We became immediately attached to her adorably curious and playful personality.
She was our third musketeer who came with us to explore the world.
We also taught her how to walk on a lead.
She shared a lot of incredibly special moments with us.
A highlight of which for me was when we went to Monument Valley and walked Amiee around there.
The three of us have visited a massive 15 US states – she’s a cat who is more travelled than most people we know.
It was in February this year that our visas were nearing the end and Covid was shutting countries down.
But we were adamant we weren’t going to leave Aimee.
After putting in some thought, we decided to head to Baja in Mexico – because it seemed pretty relaxed about the pandemic there during
We decided to adopt a cat
that time.
Crossing the border, we were feeling confident in our plan.
Horrifically, one day while we were there, Aimee was viciously attacked by three dogs on a building site next door to where we were staying.
We heard a piercing shriek, and immediately knew that Aimee was in trouble.
Scaling the fence, I jumped down to save her from the dogs.
Taking her to a vet to get fixed up we were told she had a broken leg.
It really made us realise how important she was to us.
As the pandemic got increasingly worse, Baja became stricter.
The number of cases began to creep up, and as a result the government took a firmer approach.
The borders to the US closed within 24 hours of announcing it, so we had to stay in Mexico. Willow, Aimee and I were in the campervan in a national park when one day two cars carrying health officials and local police armed with semi-automatic weapons appeared. It was a pretty terrifying experience for us.
They explained to us that the national parks were now closed due to the pandemic.
We left rapidly and returned to a beach which we had stayed at previously.
After not being there long at all, the same happened again. We were booted out and told that beaches were no longer somewhere we were allowed to stay.
This could get tricky, I
thought to myself. Loading our camper with plenty of food, we headed to another, more secluded beach. Yet again, we were approached by some health officials. But this time we hit the jackpot!
We were told it would be best to stay where we were, on the beach.
That didn’t last long though and we had to find somewhere else to park up.
At this point, we calculated we had a total of £17.50 to live off a day.
No part of the trip has been easy since the pandemic hit, but we have to stay to look after our Aimee.
Finally, we’re settled on a plot of land which is owned by a friend, so that we don’t attract any more unwanted attention from the police.
Annoyingly we’ve recently found out that the van has packed in, it needs either a new engine or a complete engine rebuild.
So, for the meantime we’re stuck in Mexico.
It’s been a bit of a nightmare the past few months, but it’s beautiful out here, and we’re doing just fine because we’re The Three Musketeers.