Last night was a weird night with not much sleep. There have been a lot
of campgrounds with food lockers, but I haven’t been using them. A food locker is a metal or wooden box you
put your food in so the birds, squirrels, raccoons, and bears don’t get
it. I used them in the campgrounds when
we were in bear country, but not in areas where the problem animals were mainly
birds and squirrels. Last night at 3:30
in the morning I was regretting not using the food locker! Something wandered past my tent and brushed
up against the side. It woke me up the
first time. I thought it was a dog or
something at first. The second time it
did it I was awake but it was dark so I couldn’t see exactly what it was, so I
gave it a good kick and it ran off. Not
ten minutes later I was laying there just starting to get back to sleep when
all of a sudden something tore open the side of my tent, reached in and grabbed
my food bag, and tried to run off with it.
I sat up in time to grab the bag as it was being pulled through the
football sized hole in my tent. For
about fifteen seconds I was playing tug-o-war with some animal I couldn’t see
in the dark and my food bag!! Eventually
I let go because the thought of whatever this animal is coming in through the
hole and me being stuck inside my tent with it didn’t sound like much fun. I
got dressed really quick, grabbed my flashlight, and got outside to see what
animal I was dealing with and where my food went. When I got out I saw two giant raccoons
eating my food and staring at me. They
didn’t even seem scared of me. I yelled
at them and walked toward them. They
finally ran off a little ways so I could grab my shredded food bag. It was late and I was more concerned with the
giant hole in the side of my tent than the lost food. I threw what was left of the food bag and
food into the food locker I should have been using in the first place and got
some duct tape and temporarily patched the hole in my tent. The rest of the night I didn’t sleep
much. I was pretty much wide awake
laying there thinking they might come back for more food and tear into my tent
again. They didn’t, but what a
night! The next morning I patched my
tent a little better, packed up my stuff, and Hank and I headed down the road
toward the next camp in Big Sur.
The ride to Big Sur was beautiful!
The coastline was rocky and around every corner and over every hill was
another postcard perfect picture to be taken.
I didn’t stop to take pictures at every spot because I would have never
gotten to my next campground. There are
a lot of pictures in my head.
When Hank and I got to the Big Sur campground we realized it was in a
small redwood forested area. There were
some really big trees compared to back home, but nothing like the trees in the
Redwoods from a week or so ago. It was
still a very pretty campground.
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