Encounters with the wild in Indiana

It's hard to believe this trip is almost over. It's gone by too quickly. We'll be in New York by Monday evening. In time to deliver a pizza to Mr. B (GTBC camp director).

We checked out ol' Chicago yesterday. It's a city rich with history and stories and brick buildings. We camped near Lake Michigan last night. We've had to stay at a few motels along the way, so it was nice to be sleeping outdoors again. As we set up our campsite, Janna yelled, "Brianna, look!" And pointed to a raccoon about 20 feet from our tent. I'm pretty sure raccoons during the day are not a reassuring site. Something about rabies flashed through my mind.

"Janna, get in the car. And grab the camera." Janna climbed back in the car and I picked up a big stick. What's the worse that could happen, I thought. I received a partial rabies inoculation when I thought I was going to Sudan, so I felt a little fearless. I jumped toward the raccoon, waving my twig madly in the air, while yelling for the rodent to scram. He didn't move, but just stared at me and hissed. Hmmm.... my tactics weren't working.

A scene from the movie, Elf, flashed through my head. I could just picture this raccoon lunging for my face and biting it off. Despite how often my low-self esteem displays itself through my moaning and groaning of how I look ;), I'm rather fond of my face and would like to keep it intact for a little longer. At that point I figured it might be wise to get some help.

We notified the park ranger about the raccoon (that we lovingly dubbed "Rambling Ralfie the Rabid Raccoon"). He had some animal control officers come into the camp to "remove" the raccoon. Their plan was to contain Ralfie, move him off-site, and kill him. They were really worried how we would handle watching this, especially if they ended up having to kill him in front of us. We assured them that we didn't mind (after all, we had already set up our tent). The ranger laughed and said, "Oh that's right. You girls are from Oregon, right?"

They did end up killing him in front of us. It wasn't all that exciting. They shot him a couple of times (maybe with a 22), he squirmed on the ground a little, then he was dead. It was nice not to have to worry about a rabid raccoon attacking us as we ate our dinner around the campfire.