In the summer of 2005, my husband Paul and I took a nearly three-week vacation to visit family and friends and to explore the back country roads of America. We took a plane to Tennessee and then traveled a 2,500-mile loop back by car. What we didn't plan for was to encounter a hitchhiker.
On the fourth day of the trip, we got a hotel room in Seymour, Ind., and walked to a restaurant. On our return, we saw a small, bloody cat frantically limping from under one parked car to another. We sat down on a stoop nearby. It didn't take long for the cat to come running to us, and soon it was purring around our legs. It was female, and the blood was from bite wounds and a broken tooth. She was limping because of a deformed leg, and she was bone thin. All I had to offer her were crackers, which she inhaled.
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