Hiking...With A Cat And The Moon

Yesterday, after dinner, the cat and I took a little hike. We are fortunate enough to live at the base of a mountain--not the highest mountain around, but high enough, and where we live, we can't see the top. Yesterday, as it has happened in the past, our cat followed me up the hill.

A nearly full moon rose above the mountain line and I snapped a few pictures. I also tried capturing the cat as he followed me. Cat's a wily one, and he's getting over a battle wound. I took a few shots.

Of course, the purpose of going up is to see the world below. The sky wasn't the prettiest, nor was it in full sunset mode, but it was beautiful up there, looking down on the valley, at my home, at a place where I grew up and that has changed so much.

Here's just a snippet of what I saw, the valley, the cat, and the moon.

Going On A Hike...With A Cat

Living on the side of a mountain and at the head of a very popular hiking trail, I see hikers trek up and down the mountain all the time.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone take their cat along...

But last week, I did.

It was me.

It was after work and I wanted to see if I could get any pictures of the colors before storms erased it all. I loaded up my nice camera and I began my hike.

Teewinot, our cat, started following me.

It's not unusual for him to do this. If I'm out and I decided to walk to the end of our street or around my yard, many times he'll follow me. When I started out on my hike, I didn't know how far I'd go or how long I'd be gone, so when he started following me, I thought it was cute. I didn't expect he'd stay with me the entire time.

I hiked about a half a mile up the hill. There's a road we call the Fire Break Road that far away. I wasn't sure I'd end up there, but it was such a beautiful afternoon, that became my goal. Teewinot kept up with me the entire time.

Our cat's been with us for years. I'm sure he's been up and down that mountain and where we went was nothing new to him. Still, it was fun to watch an aging cat make the hike. He was much quicker going down--aren't we all? 

It's getting colder--it even snowed last weekend, not enough to stick around, but it will, eventually. I don't do a lot of hikes anyway so I'm probably not going to be up the hill again much any time soon. But, last week, on a nice Utah autumn afternoon, me and the cat had a good time.