Camping with wild animals
- I have a Jack Russell that we took camping with us in Pennsylvania for the first time last year. It was late in the season and the campgrounds were pretty deserted so we had him off leash; he comes when he’s called. One afternoon, we were sitting by the campfire with him in my lap when we look up and see a black bear with two cubs walking the trail toward us. As my partner and I sit very still and observe the majesty of this wild family, my dog decides it would be a great idea to leap off my lap and CHARGE at this bear. Keep in mind my Jack Russell is all of 23 pounds and this bear is the size of a mini-van. I gave chase and when I caught up to my dog the bear was no where in sight, but needless to say my dog spent the rest of the weekend on the leash while I recovered from my heart attack.
- I had a bear circling me once. After being awake for a few moments and listening intently as I figured out what I should do, I realized it was the guy next to me snoring.
- I was sleeping in a hammock at Lake Pleasant in Arizona and had a family of skunks nudging my butt from below one night. And every night for the week I was there I had the same donkey (burro) nudge me in the middle of the night to get snacks and have me pet him.
- One night camping I went to bed a bit early and woke up an hour later to a chipmunk walking along my arm (hand behind my head), but I didn’t realize what was going on until it ran across my face and down my other arm and then jumped off. I could feel every finger on his soft tiny paws.
- My son and I were tent camping when he was about 9. It started getting a little windy, but they weren’t calling for rain. Well, it started storming. I mean it was raining buckets. Then the lightning started getting too close for comfort. We were trying to hunker down on the air mattress, but luckily my phone had a good signal still because we got a tornado warning. Well, we hightailed to the truck and in the chaos, the zipper broke on the tent. We slept in the truck all night. Tornado never came, but it was scary. Next morning we walked back to the tent. There was so much water in the tent that the mattress was literally floating. The funny part was there were orange raccoon prints all over the mattress. Basically, the raccoons were laying in bed eating an entire bag of Doritos while we were stuck in a truck sleeping on reclined front seats.
- I went solo camping on the Olympic peninsula beach and had just set up a nice campsite with a tent and a fire pit. Sitting around the fire just after dinner, I hear a noise by the tent. Went to look and a raccoon had found my box of wine and drank the whole thing. The dude was crashing around my site and tent all night long. Never seen an animal that drunk before — or since. I had a sweet, sober camping trip though.
