Where the F… is Sydney??

Near the end of my time at Del Mar Campground I got home late, wasn’t on high alert as I should have been and out ran both cats as I opened the door to take Parley out to pee…fuck.

I grabbed their treat container and started to call them and the only one that came to me was Murray. Sydney was gone.

I called and called her for two days. My son and his girlfriend came over and helped too. His girlfriend, thank god, made some posters and we blanketed the campground with them. The front desk was amazing and told us we could put the flyers everywhere and they would contact us if someone found her.

Soon it was time for me to move on, and we hadn’t located Sydney yet. I had campgrounds scheduled and paid for and needed to get moving. I was thankful that my son and his girlfriend were in the area just in case someone found her.

It was very sad for me and for the boys as we drove out of the campsite without Sydney. I was just sick about losing her.

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We headed off to our next destination…Victorville CA.

I had scheduled two nights at the campground, Shady Oasis. I had called them earlier that week to reserve a site. The guy who answered the phone was really nice. But he did say I had to be there by noon because the office was closing then. Luckily it was only a two and a half hour drive…we made it one minute before noon.

The office lady was just locking up when I arrived. She told me which site to go into and said that I could just fill out one of the envelopes by the door to pay for the site. She was really nice. I thanked her, grabbed the envelope and headed to my campsite.

When I drove through the campsite I noticed some families there, but then I also noticed people that had made this their permanent residence. Which is fine, but it was pretty dirty.

The couple at the site next to me had a couch outside their camper…yep, a couch and a full size barbeque grill. They had also pulled both picnic tables over to their side of the campsite. Which was fine for me, I didn’t plan on getting out of the trailer much. Especially with the huge ant problem happening all over my site…all over. Big ants too. They were moving boulders…yep, boulders.

I setup camp, I had full hookups and I was able to just drive right in, which was nice!

After setting up camp I walked around to the front of the main office to drop my envelope with my payment information on it into the slot on the front door. The pool looked pretty nice, and clean and I was able to get a picture of my trailer in its spot.

It was fairly loud at this campground because of the nearby freeway and the nearby train. Plus I wasn’t sleeping well because of Sydney still missing. I was just hopeful that someone nice picked her up.

The next day a miracle happened…someone texted me saying they found Sydney!! WooHoo! I texted them back and sure enough, it was her! A couple was driving on base near the campground late one night and saw a black cat sitting on the side of the road. They stopped and she went right up to them and let them take her into their car. (she obviously didn’t listen to my stranger danger speech) They posted on the Marine Corps facebook page saying they found a black cat, and someone who saw a flyer at the campground messaged them saying, hey, contact this person, it’s probably her cat.

And sure as shit…it was Sydney!

So I messaged my son and his girlfriend and asked if they could go pick her up, and they did!

I told my son that I was sketched out by the kid who was high on something that came up to me when I was putting stuff away in the back of my truck. He asked if I had something that could pump up his tires on his bike. I said no. Then he asked if I would sell him my truck…ummm what? I said no, I needed my truck. Then he asked me if I were to sell it to him, how much would it be worth? I looked at him dead in the eyes and said, $5,000. He smiled and then looked into the back of my truck, saw my generator and smiled again. So it was an easy decision to head back to Del Mar for the night.

My son was able to get me a spot at Del Mar, again (third times a charm), and I loaded up the boys (parley and murray) and we headed back to Pendleton.

I setup my campsite…again.

And then Sydney was brought to the campsite! I was so happy!!

Then my son and his girlfriend took me out to dinner…was good to see them again, and it was a christmas miracle that Sydney was found and returned to me. Murray was so mad at Sydney for the first day or so. He kept growling and hissing at her. But by the time we were almost to our next destination they were family again…all was right with the world.

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