Maine Cat Becomes Celebrity After Sneaking into Her Family's Car and Joining Their Road Trip
A family from Maine set off on a road trip only to discover hundreds of miles away from home that their four-legged friend had come along for the ride.
WCSH reported that Andrea Scholten and her family packed up their pop-up camper in late July to drive from St. Albans, Maine, to EAA AirVenture 2022 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
After driving about 900 miles, the family stopped in Toledo, Ohio, where they popped up the camper and opened the door to discover their cat, Delilah, who was supposed to stay home for this trip.
In a Facebook post sharing her surprising discovery, Scholten said she suspected the cat found her way into the car while the family was loading their vehicle.
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Andrea Scholten Delilah the cat and her family
"The plan so far is to see how she does as a camper cat, if she doesn't do well we'll have to find a kennel," the post explained.
Scholten told WCSH that the family was "completely unprepared" to care for Delilah while on the road, so they stopped at a Target to buy the pet food, litter, and a collar to write her name on.
According to WCSH, after finding the cat, Scholten began posting updates on Delilah's big adventure on Facebook, specifically to the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2022 - Pictures and Video! group. Ahead of the event, Delilah got her own hashtag — #stowawayoshkoshcat — and started to build a following.
"We put a story up with a photo of her and people thought it was hysterical," Scholten said, according to WCSH. "They were commenting 'We want more Delilah,' so we did. Every day a couple of times a day, I would put up a post, and we used the hashtag ... People loved Delilah."
Andrea Scholten Cat image in the sky
One of Scholten's Facebook posts about Delilah featured a skywriter at the event, who drew an image of a cat in the sky after the Delilan story started to take off.
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In another post, Scholten shared photos of the cat watching the air shows at the event.
"Just in case anyone doubts us when we say she watches the air show!" the post read.
Andrea Scholten Delilah
After an exciting and unexpected trip with their cat, Delilah's family stopped for one last photo op at Niagara Falls before returning home, according to a Facebook post.
Scholten told WCSH that after this year's experience, her family plans to bring Delilah — on purpose — to next year's event.
