It has now been one full week since I arrived back at home, and almost
two weeks since I had Harri in the truck with me. Harri has been quite
happy to be a house kitty, but I decided it was time to go on another
kitten dark walk.  Since Ranger didn't mind doing a leash walk with
Nancy in the back yard the other day, we made it a two-kitten walk.

Since our little pickup was wrecked, we're driving a van we borrowed
from my mom (it's great living close to family!). We put harnesses and
leashes on both Harri and Ranger and put them in the van, then we
cruised the neighborhood for a while. Almost as soon as left the
driveway Harri was standing in the window looking at the dark outside.
That's her special signal that means "It's time for a kitten walk, Paw".
We drove through some neighboring streets, then went to the elementary
school a couple of blocks from home. It was about 8:10 PM when we got
there, so it was nice and dark.

Harri got immediately back into the swing of night walks. She made a
bee-line for the hedges, and as is her usual she ducked under the hedge
and started along the edge of the adjacent building, realized I couldn't
follow her there, and backed out all by herself. She then started off at
a trot along the outside of the hedge along the building.

We got over to a somewhat confusing driveway/pedestrian walkway, and I
had to pick her up and carry her through the well-concealed pedestrian
entrance, but Harri then took the lead. She headed straight for the
fence along the edge of the playground and started hunting bugs. she
took us to the far edge of the playground, where it abuts the back yards
of neighboring houses. She sniffed a lot of weeds, picking up the scents
of lots and lots of little urchins - excuse me, children (no, I'm
especially fond of children. Neither is Harri.)

As we patrolled the far fence, Nancy and Ranger cut across the
playground toward us. They were a little bit delayed due to Ranger's
much shorter legs, and due to Ranger's tree explorations. Even though
she's only 8 weeks old, Ranger was already climbing trees!

Most of the walk we were seperated by at least 50 yards, but we did
occasionally meet up. Harri would lead us out ahead of Nancy and Ranger,
then stop and sniff the air until they caught up to us. A couple of
times Ranger intruded in Harri's personal space and got her ears boxed,
but overall they got along quite well.

Towards the end of the walk Ranger displayed remarkable climbing ability
 - she climbed about 8 feet up a big carob tree! Harri didn't do that
until she was about 8 *months* old.  Though to Harri's credit, she did
capture two more moths tonight. One was a catch and release, and one was
a snack.

While we were walking I got a few "meeeeew"s from Harri - the sound that
I've come to understand as "thanks!". It felt really good to go kitty
walking again, and to take Harri riding again. We're going to have to do
this regularly.

At this point I'm not certain if I'll be going on the road again or
taking an office job. I'm not going to be driving for at least a little
while due the hernia. My current company will take me back as soon as I
get a medical release. I've got another company (that doesn't allow
animals on their trucks) who wants me to drive dedicated routes for
them, and another company (I don't know yet if they allow animals) wants
me to drive a dedicated route for them. And, most important, I've got an
interview for a system admin/programmer job Monday afternoon. So right
now things are very much up in the air. But no matter what happens,
we're going to have to make a habit of kitty road trips and dark walks.

Dan