The thieving raccoon...

I think it was Friday night during our camping trip, the kids were in the camper watching a movie, and settling down in their bunk for the evening. I was going back and forth from our camper and Lynn and Dave's, gathering cooking utensils etc., that had been left in their campsite. Upon one of my trips back to our camper, I heard someone playing around in the cooler. My first thought, who's out of bed and messing around outside? The closer I got, I saw him! The raccoon was standing there, holding the cooler's lid up and reaching in for a drink. He pulled out a capri sun pouch, looked at me, and waddled his rather round behind over underneath the truck. I said.. You Thief! Get out of our cooler! He just looked at me, sat down under the backend of the truck, and bit through the pouch. I could hear the sucking as he was drinking its contents. I laughed, and turned back to go get John and Dave. They came over and looked at him, still sitting there, enjoying his drink, then I went into the camper, and told the kids.. "come look at this raccoon." They got a laugh, but I also reiterated.. WE DO NOT TOUCH WILD ANIMALS! I could see it Daniel's eyes; he really wanted to pet it! Hanna of course, had to let out her oh so dramatic shriek! There's an animal in our cooler! I still had time to step into the camper and get the camera to take this picture. I can't believe he didn't run away. When he was finally done, he left the pouch on the ground and waddled off into the darkness. I think the park rangers need to have a chat with this guy about littering!

We instructed the kids from this point, if you're going to get a drink from the cooler, that's fine, just make sure the "thing" on the top clicks when you close it. That "should" keep the raccoon out for the rest of the night.

Later on, when John and I were laying on our bunk, before the rain started, he was sure he heard someone routing around outside, so he went out to check. Nobody there, but to be sure the other cooler (the electric one, that had our meat in it, that didn't have a lock) to be sure it stayed "safe" he set the full propane tank for the grill on top of it. If any critters tried to get in there, hopefully, we'd at least hear the noise of the propane tank being knocked to the ground.