We began sharing our thoughts with our friends and neighbors about the CCN report on this amazing family in Pontchartrain who were staying in the flood devastated area caring for homeless animals in spite of all odds and obstacles. Many of them had also seen the report and they too Jumped In -- to Get It Done our vision from that first night materialized. Some one donated a travel travel for us to tow to Pontchartrain!

When we finally had an opportunity to pick up the gifted travel trailer it was quickly obvious that gift trailers, like gift horses, were not to be looked in the mouth, so to speak. The weeds from the heavy monsoon rains, made mature cornstalks in Iowa look like blades of grass. How long had this baby been here? The two Plexiglas skylights had been broken by months of hail, and the trailer smelled like mold. Outside storage compartments swung in the breeze, no keys - the owner couldn’t locate them.

I opened one storage compartment and was floored by the smell of rat urine and it was filled to the brim with cholla balls and all other pack rat building materials available in our desert.

The great surprise came with the presence of a few hornets. David and I were hooking up the trailer and trying to figure out if the tires were roadworthy or not when a hoard of hornets came shooting out of several compartments. Roadworthy or not, we dove into the truck and took that trailer for a fast ride down the freeway to David's shop.

Our fantasy of “cruising” down to Slidell with THIS trailer was going to need a reality check - can we say, “trailer makeover?”

What next...