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Are you really 'roughing' it with camping, or are you just sleeping in a tent?

supper was over we decided to go up to the shower houses to clean up and to get all of the sweat, dirt, and smelling ripeness off of our skin. Just so that we could do it all over the next day. Just when we thought we had the kids tucked in bed and they were asleep, they weren't. Thats when the Raccoons decide to come out and raid every ones camping area.

Just got into bed ourselves and outside of our tent you could hear the coons fighting over any little scrap of food they found in trash cans or on the ground. Our oldest daughter swears that they are after her to eat her! The coons would get to hissing, scratching, and fighting one another and our daughter would be like "Dad there is something chomping outside of the tent and its going to eat me"

We would tell her that they weren't after her but she didn't believe us. She kept us up most of the night. Waking us up about every 5 minutes saying there going to get me, they are chomping waiting to get into the tent to eat me! Our other daughters just sleep right through it all. Having a 12 year old daughter sleeping right up next to me in the middle of the tent where she couldn't get eaten is not my idea of sleeping peacefully.

She was swearing that they were trying to get into the tent. I told her that is why you don't keep any food in the tent so that they won't come inside the tent. Didn't matter they were just after her and not the food! She still hates raccoons and when we see one on the road driving at night she begs me to run it over. Just so that it won't follow us home and try to eat her! She gets mad at me when I just honk and let it run off.

To our surprise when we got up the next morning we knew exactly what they were fighting over! They had gotten into our cooler and strung our food from there to kingdom come. The mess that we had to clean up, we told our daughter see they weren't trying to eat you. They were fighting over our food.

I don't think anything in this world would ever convince our daughter that those coons weren't after her. When the day to finally go home came, we all were never so glad to pack up! Taking down camp took half the time that putting it up did. Having one shower in the house is a terrible thing. Cause we all wanted the shower, to get the wonderful great outdoors off of us!

Getting home was like a dream come true for us all. Sure makes you realize that having the phone ringing off the wall and the TV blaring in the background is a blessing. Still yet we do go camping 3 to 4 times every year if not more!

We did ask our daughter how she would like a pet raccoon for a new pet, her reply was: "I don't think so, coons are evil!"



Learn more about this author, Renee Bennett.
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