Our Best Raccoon Story
Since our bicycle trip had so many run-ins with Raccoons, I deemed it necessary to create a web page totally dedicated to our experiences with them. You see how friendly Robin is to that Raccoon in the picture, it sure was fun to see it eat that piece of bread.
In the beginning of our bicycle trip, when we first came face to face with Raccoons, we were very friendly with them and gave them food because they were so 'cute'. It didn't take long for us to learn not to do that! First of all, we learned that Raccoons are way smarter than we had ever imagined. An older - professional park Raccoon can unscrew lids to cans, unzip bicycle bags and back-pack zippers, unbutton buttoned up things, unsnap the snapped, and they can easily find any well hidden food. But I think the most amazing thing they can do is stay up all night!
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| The Raccoon: Our Number One Animal |
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All this leads me to one particular story that happened more so in the
beginning of our trip, on or near the west coast. Usually, when we
would first cycle up to our campsite after a hard day of pedaling,
there would be a picnic table there. We would lean the bicycle up
against the picnic table, lock it using a cable (if we thought it was
necessary), and then we would set up our tent about 10 feet or so in
front of the bike. Well, there we were, asleep in our little tent in
the middle of the night when all of a sudden I'm awoken with Robin
yelling at me, 'Get up, don't you hear that?'. Well, at first I just
went back to sleep - but then she elbows me in the side pretty hard and
says, 'Don't you care about me!?, I said get up and see what that
is!!!'. Then, as I listened, I could hardly believe my ears. I heard
our bike bag zipper opening and realized that someone is messing with
our bike.
I hunted for our flashlight for awhile, grumbled, and
slowly made my way out of the tent. As I shined the light toward the
bike I could see nothing. There I was, standing out there in the dark
in only my underwear, half asleep, hoping that no one else could see
me. Off to the side I finally found the culprits. It was a family of
Raccoons, I don't remember exactly how many of them there were but
there were at least 3 of them, a big one and some little ones beside.
The big one had a baggie in it's mouth and I think our toothpaste tube
was in the bag, anyway. There they all sat looking at me, frozen, waiting to see
what I was going to do. There I stood, waiting to see what they were
going to do. I just stood there with the flashlight on them and didn't
know what to do or say at first. Then I kind of wiggled the light in
their face and shouted, 'Git!'. Now remember, at this point I'm only about 6 feet away from them. I shouted 'Git' a couple more times and I
think the big one just kind of turned its head saying, 'what?'.
Then,
the big Raccoon of the bunch kind of crouched down, leaned forward, and
looked like he was getting ready to lunge at me. I got concerned at
that point and kind of froze. Then an instantaneous thought came to me
of what to do, I turned the flashlight on my own face and yelled,
'Git!'. That Raccoon dropped the bag immediately. I've never seen Raccoons run so fast and act so scared in all my life - doing that
did the trick. I just didn't realize that all the Raccoons were seeing was a really bright light. My yelling didn't seem to be the primary solution. I guess Raccoons go by sight more than by what they hear, it's either that or I'm a lot uglier than what I thought!
Oh well, you had to be there to really get a kick
out of the whole thing. Anyway, as the trip progressed, we learned to tie our
food up on cloths line in trees and we mostly learned not to be
friendly with the Raccoons! |
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