Discover Your Adventure: For the Animal Lovers
Travel Advisor: Jackie Amundson
Personal Interest: Cats
Destination: Africa, to see the Big Cats of the world
AAA Auto Counselor Jackie Amundson has been a champion for animals for as long as she can remember - in fact, since she first begged her parents to let her rescue a little black kitten named Pumpkin on her 7th birthday. A few years later, she adopted a feisty Siamese she named Little Dreamer (from the Van Halen song). A clever chatterbox – and a cat who fetched - Dreamer was her soulmate. She was the first of many foster cats she and her husband, Bob, adopted over the years. “And they often came in pairs,” she says, “because I couldn’t pick just one.” There was Bo and Luke, Sugar and Spice, Donny and Marie and George and Gracie - all little feline lottery winners, destined to be loved, nurtured and cherished as members of Bob and Jackie’s family.
Jackie has literally walked the talk for animals, too. In 1978 she participated in the Walk for the Whales (she still has the button from it) for the new Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley. In 2003, she completed her first Animal Humane Society walk, raising $327. Inspired and energized, she set a lifetime goal of $70,000, which she achieved this year. “I do it for one reason, and it’s because animals can’t advocate for themselves,” she says.
That kind of lifetime devotion to animals calls for a reward, and Jackie has something in mind. “Someday I want to see South Africa’s big cats in the wild.” It’s a dream of many AAA members who consider it a journey of a lifetime. In South Africa, one of the best regions to see animals up close, she and Bob can see lions, cheetahs and leopards, in the safety of a Range Rover, while photographing their hearts out.
What a way to celebrate a lifetime of cat-loving.
Jackie is a Disney expert, and an auto-counselor specializing in domestic road trips. She works at our Eden Prairie branch, and can be reached at jamundson@aaaminneapolis.com
