Did you know that hedgehogs get carsick?

This weekend, I didn’t knit a stitch.

My husband and I have been thinking and talking for a long time about getting a pet. I’m severely allergic to cats and dogs. I did keep a hamster for a while, and had some fish for quite a long time (including a big angelfish that my husband swore was going to hop out of the tank and eat him one day) but neither felt quite right for us.

We started to talk about hedgehogs back in June… and then talking some more… and reading about them on the Internet… then we bought a book on hedgehogs… I went to visit some at the exotic pet store… and then we decided that, if we still wanted a hedgehog when we got back from our August trip to the Midwest, then we would start talking to breeders.

The closest reputable breeder we could find was in eastern Kansas. Do you know how far Kansas is from Austin, Texas? Saturday, I drove 640 miles one-way to the breeder’s house. I stopped to check in at my hotel, inhale some pizza (whenever I escape Texas, I make an effort to find good pizza as soon as possible; you just can’t get it here) and then showed up for my appointment at the breeder’s house.

Fifteen minutes later, I was walking out to the curb with our new pet.

He was very active and friendly at the breeder’s; not so much at the hotel. In fact, when I took him out of his carrier at the hotel, he looked like this:

Yep, a little ball of quills. A little hissing ball of quills! He didn’t take too kindly to being suddenly removed from everything he had ever known. However, he is a friendly, curious little fellow, so after a moment, he poked his nose out, and started exploring:

At this point, I found that it is very difficult to get an in-focus photo of his nose, because it is always twitching! Hedgehogs don’t have very good eyesight, but they have a keen sense of smell.

After we explored each other a bit, and he tried to eat the corner of a pillow, I plopped him in the bathroom with his wheel, some water, a bit of food and an old towel for snuggling, and then went to take advantage of the hotel hot tub. Eleven hours is a long way to drive by one’s self.

The next morning, we set out for Austin. After getting turned around in Wichita, going down the wrong entrance ramp after lunch south of Norman (and consequently going through a slow construction zone three times!) and dealing with traffic in Ft. Worth, the trip home took 13 hours, including a few stops to rest, eat, and shake off that dazed-staring-at-the-highway-for-too-long feeling. My whole body hurt by the time I pulled into the garage. Little Ned, however, had it worse. He puked twice in the morning, once again in the afternoon, and pretty much spent the trip curled into a miserable little ball. The big push to get home, however, was justified by how happy my husband was to see us both.

Ned’s settling in nicely now. He likes to play with a toilet paper tube, crawl in the dark corners, and snooze in our laps. We’re very happy to have him here.