No one would blame Gumbo the cat for trying to avoid a trip to the vet. Gumbo, who lives in Brooklyn, wiggled out of his owner’s arms on the way to a doctor’s appointment and disappeared. He was found days later, 230 miles away, in a town near Lake George.

He had made it all that way in the engine compartment of another family’s car, and he was still stuck there.

The Post-Star reports that the family noticed the smell of cat urine during the drive, but it wasn’t until they arrived that they heard a faint meow. They opened the hood, and there was Gumbo, “buried deep down under hoses, toward the passenger compartment,” the paper reports. The cat probably spent three or four days in the car before his long journey, after seeking out warmth there. He had filled the area with cat hair and was “lethargic,” animal rescue said, but otherwise was doing fine.