Mississippi Vacation Part 2

We are traveling through the country and often see wildlife crossing the road or in the fields. Last year it was a fox, but this year we saw a turkey vulture on the side of the road having dinner of some road kill. My husband thought I was making it up, so I have included a picture of what I saw – and it is a turkey vulture. I might be a city girl, but I watch those animal documentaries…

Besides the turkey vulture, we had some issues with raccoons. My husband and I just think that they are giant rats – scavengers and dirty. These particular raccoons did not seem to be afraid of humans and smelled these yummy smores we were making. After I had headed to the bathroom, the raccoon walked right up to Roger in the chair. Kind of frightening when they are not scared of you. We packed up everything into the camper, knowing that it was probably the food that attracted them, and went to bed.

Needless to say, this was not the end of it. At about 2 am, we kept hearing the fighting of the raccoons beneath our camper – not a real restful sound. My husband – my brave protector – peered out of the camper to see 5 – yes 5 – raccoons fighting over who could dig into the tiny inlet where the propane hose goes for our grill. After shooing them away, we tried to figure out what they were digging for. Behold – the box of Little Debbie’s Zebra Cakes were in the cabinet just the other side of that inlet. We pulled all the food away from the cabinet, but a dryer sheet in the hole and wished for the best. It seems that we threw their scent off. Thank goodness.

We awake to raccoon tracks everywhere – on the plastic tub, on the latched cooler and on the picnic table. YUCK! I wish I could say that the story ends here, but it doesn’t. We decided to spend the day at a very fun water park since the temperature was going to reach 90. The water park was great and inexpensive – this is what I like. We get back to the car and I notice that there are raccoon tracks on my car. I wasn’t too worried about scratch marks since it was on crashed side of the car. I followed the tracks up to where the windshield meets the body of the car just below the windshield. What did my daughter and I see… raccoon poop! Note: raccoon poop that had been sitting in the hot son for 6 hours. Not a pleasant site.

My husband stopped at the closest gas station for directions (he was this desperate to get rid of the poop) to the nearest manual car wash. We found one and paid the price to get rid of the mess. Once the high-pressure water hit the poop, it sprayed all over the wall of the car wash. I was just laughing by now. I knew that this would be a story to remember. We cleaned the poop off the car and the wall and were back on our way.

One must say that living in the midst of wild life is never dull.

That is all for today. Thanks for reading.