It is with deep sadness in our hearts that we share that our beloved Kiki passed away last week (Monday, July 29th) after nearly 16 years of full time nomadic adventures with us.
The boat feels so empty without her.
Kiki conquered our hearts back in November 2008. We had stopped in to visit our friend Martha on her ranch in Oregon while traveling up the coast in our small Oliver Travel Trailer.
As soon as we sat down to dinner, three tiny baby kittens crawled up into Cherie’s lap – and Martha asked us if we wanted a cat.
Our first meeting.
Love at first kiss.
Who could resist!
We knew in an instant what the answer would be, even though it took a while for our logical heads to catch up with our enraptured hearts.
These three kittens had been found abandoned in the ranch’s chicken coop at just a week or two old – and were presumably orphaned barn cats, with a mom lost to coyotes. The chickens seemed a bit clueless as to how to nurse kittens, so Martha and her kids had taken them in – originally needing to bottle feed them.
When we arrived to the ranch – they were roughly seven weeks old, and quite rambunctious.
The kids had named them: Kiki (after the animated Miyazaki classic Kiki’s Delivery Service!), Simon, and Bear.
It didn’t take more than a moment for us to start deciding which of the three kittens we might audition to join our journey.
We observed and interacted with them all, but the one named Kiki kept catching our attention.
She was spunky and curious, but just a tad bit more reserved than her siblings before just pouncing into mischief. She seemed to have the right personality for a cat that would be constantly exposed to new things living on the road.
But could we actually take on a cat in our tiny little trailer?
We both identified as cat people – so we had a strong desire to find a way to make it work.
When we had first hit the road together in 2007 – Cherie left behind her cat Alma with a loving ex. Alma just wasn’t made for road life. Chris had lived with cats some before too – though a history of cat allergies made him wary. Would a new cat trigger him?
When we initially set off we were in an even smaller trailer that barely had room for two humans – so a traveling cat was at first out of the question.
But once we upgraded to the slightly larger Oliver travel trailer – we had actually been occasionally discussing the possibility of allowing ourselves to be adopted.
If the right cat came along….
And here she was – hopping right into our laps!
To test the waters, we brought Kiki out to our trailer to spend a work day with us to see how she liked it. She took one look around, and said ‘Hi, I’m home – I own you now.’
Kiki’s first look at the Oliver – from her perch on Cherie’s shoulder.
Kiki loved doing art projects…
As a kitten, Kiki would tunnel through the Oliver’s upper cabinets.
She certainly seemed happy with the tiny living space.
So we decided to take each other out for a test run.
We bought the necessary supplies and made plans for Kiki to join us for a few weeks on the road, to make sure she thrived in the small space – and that Chris would be able to keep his allergies in check. If it didn’t work out – Martha assured us Kiki would be welcome back at the ranch.
On that initial trip, Kiki rocked it – and there were no allergic reactions at all.
To seal the deal – Kiki got officially inducted into technomadic life by the original Technomad, Steve Roberts, himself.
And that was that – she became part of Technomadia.
Some might even say, she became Technomadia.
Here is her first adorable appearance on our YouTube channel, way back in 2009:
Kiki’s Technomadic Adventures
There weren’t too many examples of nomadic cats online back then, so we had no idea how it might work traveling with a cat. But she seemed to be made for it.
She quickly shifted from wanting to ride in her carrier, to sitting on one of our laps or shoulders as the other drove.
The cuddliest seat in the Jeep.
The ultimate headrest!
Why ride in a carrier if you can ride on top?
We kept her adaptable by constantly introducing her to new environments, other pets, and their people. We wanted her comfortable anywhere she went.
She was always the most curious when we arrived at a new location. As soon as we would start backing into a new campsite – she’d be standing to look out the window, ready to have her leash clipped so she could go explore.
She’d always be eager to go for a walk around the campground, or find connecting trails.
A cat on a leash was constantly drawing attention of other campers – ‘Is that a cat on a leash???’.
She quickly became the most social of our household, wanting to interact with others and let them love on her.
Dogs didn’t intimidate her one bit, unless they non-consensually sniffed her butt. Ask a lady first!
Kiki and her beloved Grand-Meows.
Kiki and her two Grand-Paws.
Kiki and her cousin Molly, working together for treats.
Only two things seemed to scare her – vacuum cleaners, and over-excited little girls charging towards her at campgrounds screaming “look at that kitty on a string!”.
She was a ferocious hunter too – gobbling up lizards by the score, and offering to handle any mice problems she encountered.
And in 2013, Kiki returned to Martha’s ranch for a family reunion too.
Some Adventures & Misadventures….
Kiki’s general comfort and curiosity have gotten her in trouble more than once.
One particular heart stopping encounter was when she chased a grasshopper and ended up pouncing on a rattlesnake in Colorado – getting bitten on the face.
We probably set a speed record driving down a twisty mountain road to get her to a university veterinary hospital. Fortunately – she recovered quickly, and was fine (and more wary of snakes) by the next morning.
And then there was the time she fell overboard while at anchor on the St. Johns River, right after Chris had the drone up – spotting a huge alligator swimming around the boat. It didn’t take him but a split second to jump in to swim after her, and Cherie followed closely behind with the paddle board to rescue them both.
There was a LOT of adrenaline pumping in all three of us that day!
And then there were the two separate times that she caught bats that came aboard our boat.
They seem to fly right into her mouth!
Kiki has joined us for many festivals and events, and we often successfully lobbied event organizers with ‘Leave the pets at home’ rules to officially welcome her, considering that Kiki was at “home” wherever she happened to be parked.
No matter where we took her – she always “loved” to dress up for special occasions.
There were only a few times we ever found ourselves needing to travel without her – on cruises, or train trips. When we did – Kiki would stay with her grandmeows or other friends along the way.
But mostly, she traveled with us.
She has traveled by RV, boat, ferry, train, car, and airplane. She’s visited 48 states, Canada, and she even moved with us to the US Virgin Islands for a season.
She was quite the adventure cat!
But she was also a working cat – she co-founded the Mobile Internet Resource Center, and she was our chief bandwidth tester. When we needed to burn through gigabytes of cellular or satellite data, we just needed to search YouTube for “Bird Videos for Cats” and she would be entranced for hours sucking down 4K streams.
Kiki worked her way up the ranks – she was initially dubbed Major (Major Underfoot, that is), then promoted to Captain Underfoot. And by the time she was 10, she had earned the designation of Admiral – now that she was in charge of a nomadic fleet, plus her crew.
There were a LOT of projects for her to oversee with so many vehicles to be responsible for.
Boat safety inspection.
Installing lithium batteries in our bus.
Kiki installing a Victron Quattro in Y-Not.
When Zephyr’s engine was rebuilt, Kiki used the space as a back porch.
Supervising the engine room.
She loved life in her bus, on her boat, and traveling by van.
She was always the most happy when at home, with her people – no matter where that home happened to be.
Her Robot Love
Kiki loved her people.
But she also loved food.
And if her people were not providing it – she would find ways to encourage them.
She knew how to spin paper towel holders to unravel an entire roll, and then shred it – making noise until someone came to check her art project, and then reward her with food.
Or she would bang the window blinds in the morning – swatting them as if she was ringing a dinner bell.
Or sometimes she would stick her paw into our sleeping mouths – “your mouth is full, mine is empty. Let’s fix this situation…”
To make it so we could sleep through the night – we enlisted a helper. A robotic feeder that would keep Kiki company in the early mornings, serving her breakfast.
She loved loved loved her robot friend – and even learned how to hack it to get extra food.
And she trained us humans well too – she would do “the cute thing” every afternoon, standing on her hind legs and then giving us a high five to get her daily wet food delivery.
Doing the “cute thing” over FaceTime.
Ready for a high five!
Training Greand-Meow
Nothing cuter!
High Five!
It was the highlight of our day – and she was a little hoover who (almost) always left her bowls empty.
The Warning Signs
A few weeks back we noticed that Kiki wasn’t always finishing her overnight kibble.
When a food obsessed cat starts leaving food uneaten – we began to worry.
Since it was at first only the dry food she wasn’t eating – we suspected it might be a tooth issue.
She had recently had a checkup and bloodwork, and as far as we knew she was in excellent health for a nearly 16 year old cat.
But we wanted to get her checked out ASAP – especially when we noticed her belly was starting to noticeably swell too.
We had just departed Wilmington when her appetite dropped precipitously, so we made a u-turn to get back to Port City Marina downtown where we had access to a vehicle, a secure marina slip, and ample electricity for all-day air conditioning.
We got Kiki in to Banfield for an urgent checkup, and the vet came out after giving Kiki a checkup and an X-ray and told us that her teeth were fine but that it appeared that there was serious fluid buildup happening in her abdomen.
“If this was my cat, I would take her to the ER right away”.
Yikes – our hearts dropped.
We dashed over – and the local veterinary ER hospital kept Kiki overnight for an ultrasound, fluid sampling, and further diagnostics.
It was so hard to leave her there, not knowing what might be wrong.
The vet let us know the next morning that he suspected an aggressive cancer.
We took Kiki home and waited a week for further test results to come back, but her appetite just continued to decrease and we knew it was not looking good.
The further tests ruled out anything easily treatable.
Any further diagnostics or treatment paths for the cancer would be extremely invasive, and even the best outcomes would at most buy her just a little extra time.
We knew all we could do was to make her as comfortable as possible.
We took her back to the ER and the vet drained 1.6 lbs of fluid, 10% of her body weight. That helped a lot and she stabilized for a while – but we knew her time was near.
As her appetite continued to dwindle away – we tried dozens of different treats and food options to keep getting nourishment into her.
We didn’t know whether we had days or weeks left. At times she seemed to stabilize – and we briefly fantasized that we might have months. But then her appetite vanished completely, and we knew it was almost time.
We soaked up every moment we could with her.
On Sunday, July 28 – with her not having eaten anything in 24-hours, we could see that she was beginning to become uncomfortable.
She let us know the time had come, so we contacted LapofLove.com to make the hard but loving choice of scheduling in-home euthanasia the next morning.
We enjoyed one final loving day together, before we helped her with her transition.
And then the tears flowed for days.
We had to get used to the hole in our hearts, and the emptiness on our chests where she once snuggled us every day.
It has been a bit over a week now – and we are only just starting to feel a little back to normal.
We know many of you have followed along for a long time, and Kiki has been a part of your lives too. So we welcome the warm embrace of our Technomadia community as we celebrate Kiki’s life together.
Thank you for being here all these years, and being a part of our lives – and hers.
Admiral Kiki “Kikinator” Potato Head
Oct 10, 2008 – July 29, 2024
Always In Our Hearts
To read all of Kiki’s blog posts, visit her Kiki’s Corner.
Here’s a quick video montage we put together for her YouTube fans:
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