This old girl is April -- the same one mentioned in the attempted Christmas poem below.

She belonged to a homeless man who lived with her in his car. Realizing she deserved better, he turned her into a local animal shelter, which -- since local animal shelters often have trouble adopting older pets out -- turned her over to Best Friends Animal Society, the Kanab, Utah animal sanctuary we'll be featuring here, off and on, for the next week.

April lives in an octagonal stucco building who residents are all up in years.

At Best Friends, April is available for adoption. But should that not happen, she will live her life out there, as many other animals do.

For a look at some of them, check out this Best Friends video.

Best Friends calls itself the country's largest pet sanctuary -- both in terms of the number of pets, 1,500, and the size of its spread. It sits on 33,000 magnificent acres in Southern Utah and its rocky red hills were once used to film Westerns.

Best Friends has 400 employees, assisted by about 4,500 more people who volunteer there every year -- some of whom are visiting the area on vacation.

We'll be writing more about the organization in the days ahead -- as time permits during our continuing road trip east.

Ace and I left Phoenix today and made it as far as Las Cruces, New Mexico. Tomorrow, we start pushing through Texas.