Day Twenty-Eight: Chipmonks!

We woke up, tent in full sun, cracked the tent doors and relished the cool breeze. Only now did we realize how beautiful our camp was. Wooded valley with a meandering (beaver infested) stream, grassy meadow for our camp. We unloaded the car and sat on the giant picnic table to make mochas and more gourmet bean tacos. Let me explain the mochas. Robert likes his coffee, I like the smell, but I can't handle much caffeine without giving myself a headache (I know, I'm such princess). So we make hot chocolate with a shot of mocha (an Italian term for the type of coffee Robert's maker makes), and call it mocha, chocolate coffee.

As we cooked breakfast we noticed a few things. One: the firewood gods had smiled on us again. There were neat, tall stacks of sorted firewood next to our fire pit. Two: the large population of chipmunks was totally unafraid of humans. Curse those people that feed the 'munks! We spent the morning throwing sticks at them and I would run at them making crazed barking noises, whatever works, right? I preferred the run and bark method to the sticks because the dumb varmints would run closer to investigate the sticks we threw, they were that accustomed to people!

The rest of the day was spent taking pictures of this giant horned beetle that flew into our tent, gathering water from the pond nearby. It was moving slowly, had no direct signs of beaver and their guardia problems, and was the closest acceptable source. We then showered in the hunting blind again, it was literally steaming inside the blind when I stepped out. Only the best for us! We went on a short bike ride to the trail head and up the road to the cabin. There were VOC signs pointing around the corner and a field of tents, so we went to investigate. We found a volunteer crew restoring a few more cabins, so they was be rented out and generate some much needed funds for the park. Interesting, and we thought we were all alone out here! (not exactly true, the road had been busy all morning with day fishermen, but few campers)

Oh. The gazebo. We set it up to ward off chipmunks and because it threatened to rain on us. However, we didn't immediately stake it down because we were eating chips and salsa and sour cream, a huge distraction. All of a sudden, whoosh and CRACK! The elbow joint of one pole snapped directly on its seam. It was quite a tragedy. It was our first serious equipment loss. (cracked mug, hole in the blow-up mattress, broken spigot of water container, and now, gazebo- tomorrow Robert will blow out his flip flop to add to our list, but I'm trying to pretend that I am not behind on my writing, so I won't tell you that yet. We had to Jerry-rig a pole by tying the gazebo and fly off to a tree. It was quite a fiasco. Then we guyed down almost every side of the thing so as to avoid further wind damage. What amateurs!

We decided to push back our hike by a day so we could have more time to prepare and explore the area. We made a nice fire, salad and leftover beans for dinner. The beans are very much a the end of their life though. I'm done with them, another portion-size mishap. We sorted backpacking food into bk, lunch, and dinner sacks as we listened to Robert's iPod play Jack johnson and then Keller williams and phish on travel speakers. We discovered however, that a chipmunk had breached our perimeter and eaten into one of our rice dinners! Then it was war. Robert keeps randomly exclaiming, "I'm gonna get me a chipmunk!" He took it harder than me, I guess.

Fire-sitting then trip planning in the tent.