Camping Kitty

Took my cat camping on Mt. Lemmon here in Tucson for a few days. I wasn't sure how she would do out in the wilderness, but I wanted to see. So I packed up her food, some litter, stuck her in a harness with a long leash attached and we went camping!

As I set up camp, Marilyn hopped into a chair and nuzzled her way under a pile of blankets, pillows and jackets, and stayed there for the remainder of the day. I had her on a harness attached to a long leash that was anchored at camp so she could move around, but she wasn't interested in that just yet. She just sat in the chair shivering. So, I pulled her up close to the fire.. She really didn't seem to like the crackling flames, but it was too cold and scary for her to jump out of that chair. It was too cute!

M got more adventurous the next day and decided it was okay to go on a walk. She really enjoyed all the new smells and seemed so excited to look at everything. I have taken her to other people's houses and to the park before, but this was her first time in such a different environment. She seemed excited to explore and I was highly entertained by it. I had myself a camping kitty!

Most of the time Marilyn was more than happy to stay in the tent. So, if I didn't want to keep my eye on her, I would just zip her up in there. It worked perfectly! Especially when it was time to go find & chop up some more wood.

I love chopping wood! I feel so productive when doing it and its a great stress reliever. I got down with that axe and did some choppin'! Kept the fire blazing all day and night :) Which was quite necessary, because I'm a big baby when it comes to being cold. Most of the time I was just like M on the first day...in a chair close up to the fire, huddled in blankets. If the fire started to die down a bit I was throwing another log on asap!

I got to relax and read a lot. It's so peaceful to sit outside and read without any city noise around. It was during mid week too, so there wasn't any other campers around either. I finished the book World War Z by Max Brooks! It's a big deal for me to finish a book, because I'm well known to start several books throughout the year and never finish a single one.

This book was awesome! An intelligently written account of the zombie apocolypse, as if it was the future and humans just barely survived the "Z War". It's a collection of interviews about the war from numerous survivors from various countries. It was a fantastic book! However, I don't know if I would recommend reading about a zombie war at night out in the woods. Every time I heard the smallest noise, which happened often, I would shine my flashlight away from the book and into the woods scanning the trees, ready to pick my axe and lop off a zombie head at any moment.