By Camilla Garrison

The Catventure was a tremendous success.

For those of you who don’t know, The Ultimate Catventure was a goal of the summer to take the Garrison Cats to the beach. It required purrfect conditions, of cool temperature, minimal peopleage, low tide, small waves, few cars and no wind (and if there was a small wind, blowing from the east, for best sand blast conditions.) Well, the stars had alined on July 29, 2024. This whole plan was currently hanging on the refrigerator in the Garrison home and was transferred to a clipboard once there was prospect of a catventure that day.

The Garrisons had agreed to go at about 5:30 after the people had left the beach and the tide was going down. Just as they were getting ready though, it started to rain. Again. It had already rained that day about thrice, and everyone thought it was done after the sun came out. So all the Garrisons except Echo and Ember had dinner, and by that time, it was cleared up, and the weather was just right for a catventure. The journey had begun.

First the kittens were dressed in their harnesses and leashes and everyone was preparing for the worst case scenario. Camilla and Isaac put Ember in his backpack, and Echo in the gigantic travel carrier. The supplies were gathered, and the cats and their household staff left Claudia’s Surf City. The walk there went very well, except for the fact that there was a role switch almost to the beach stairs because Echo’s carrier was a trifle heavy. As soon as they got there, the cat blanket was spread out in the right spot, the carriers were set down, and yes, the cats were indeed let out of the bag. On the pre-catventure beach scoping walk Camilla and Isaac predicted the results of this experiment. Camilla thought they would either A.) Bolt B.) Crouch down on the blanket, or C.) Hide in the carrier. Isaac said “yes, or who knows? They might be completely fine.” Well Isaac, you were right. As soon as the bags were unzipped, Echo and Ember got out and explored for a good twenty minutes, they didn’t mind the crashing waves at all, and were more interested in walking around and sniffing seaweed.

The most surprising thing ever happened at the very end. While Camilla, Chris and Isaac were packing up Echo and the rest of the stuff, Hannah was holding Ember’s leash and he did something amazing. He started walking up the stairs to go home. Ember had memorized the way to the beach and back to the house on the few backpack training walks he had gone on with Camilla and Isaac. The past two times he had gone out in the backpack, Camilla had taken him to the bottom of the stairs to the beach and back across the road to the house. Ember made it up the stairs and was just following everyone down the road next to the dunes when a car came down the other side of the road and freaked him out. Luckily, Hannah was there to catch him, and he didn’t get out of his harness or even pass the white line. After a little while of carrying, Hannah and Camilla put him back in the backpack to go down the driveway over the puddles and mud. (Camilla did not in fact have white fur on her bare feet, and could walk through the mud without permanent damage)

That is what I would call a successful catventure. You think so?

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