Monday September 24 - Rikky and Rocky Raccoon

Monday September 24 - Rikky and Rocky Raccoon


I found my place to sleep, and during the evening I shift from behind the trees and bushes to under the shadow of another tree to the dark shadow along a wall that runs the length of some steps and walkway. I am on the grassy side, not on the walkway.

I don't know what time it is, very late or early depending on one's perspective and I am sitting up leaning against the wall. Something is moving about 15 yards in front of me. Gradually my eyes focus on a large ball of fur and two beady little eyes staring back at me. A raccoon, small as raccoons go and apparently just as apprehensive about the situation as I am. I t continues on its way and into the bushes, near where I had recently been sleeping.

In my peripheral vision I notice some unusual motion to my left. I look and another Raccoon is crawling out of the brush and following the path of the first smaller raccoon. The smaller "coon" makes its way back and they meet in the middle of the clearing in front of me. They wrestle with each other and then run off into the woods on the other side of the clearing.

After a while I notice something coming directly towards me. It is in the middle of the clearing before I notice it. It's the smaller raccoon coming straight to me like I was a long lost friend. I make some kind of caustic noise in hopes of dissuading it. It stops for a moment and then continues toward me. I open the top of one of my water bottles and the sound gets the "coons" attention, but not enough to stop it. I then make an unfriendly noise and throw some water at it, to which it becomes frightened and scampers of into the trees across the clearing. Through the night I kept imagining two beady little eyes staring at me from out of the trees at the edge of the clearing.

A few minutes after the "encounter", I see "big coon" in under the tree I had slept under several nights before. He climbs up the tree, about 6 feet, then up further and out on the branches, and then up into higher branches and disappears. My that sucker can climb.

At some point I fell asleep. I don't know whether my visitors returned or not. I'd just as soon forgo their company. "Coons" are known to be friendly and mischievous, and also spreading rabies. I don't want any of that.

The incident reminded me of a time I took my family camping and as we had put the kids down for the night, my wife and I share an encounter with two skunks around the camp fire … but I'll get into that another time.