She came to a complete halt. The sound was unmistakably that of a cat meowing.

VanderRee stood there watching as a little cat emerged from behind a bush and cautiously approached her. VanderRee said, “I coaxed him out and lifted him up.” She then noticed a second kitty. Danielle Gumbley, her best friend, was summoned at that point.

“They were clearly abandoned,” VanderRee said. “There’s a lot of cougars and bears and eagles in the area, so we decided to take them with us because we didn’t want them to get eaten.”

They decided to take the kittens with them on their weekend vacation because their local SPCA facility was closed when they spotted them.

“I simply gave Danielle puppy eyes and said, ‘You have to keep them because I can’t keep them, but you have to,’” says the author. VanderRee remarked. Because she was at college at the time, she was unable to retain them. “We’ll see how they do over the weekend,” Gumbley replied after a little pause.