Migrating Spiders

I like interesting blog titles. Sometimes my posts just ramble along and there’s no one title that fits. So, I like pulling something out of the ramble that sounds interesting. Like this title - Migrating Spiders. What will this post be about? Spiders in general? A spider problem at home? A PBS special that was fascinating? I mean really, how can you know unless you read the whole thing. Which is really the point, I would say, right?!

So, this post is about camping! My favs!

We had our first camping trip of the season with a large group. (As some of you may know/remember from my other posts, I like to get the first camping trip of the season under my belt as soon as possible – they are almost always terrible. Something goes wrong – a car breaks down, there’s a lighting storm, some really important item is forgotten – like the time I packed all canned food and then forgot the can opener! That’s what I mean. So usually, I like to do the first one by myself just to get it out of the way.) Well, not this time. This first trip was with everyone, including Lee. It was also farther away. And it was before the campground opened for the season so conditions were an unknown. Oh yes, this was the first time we brought our dog too! The pressure was on.

We went to Highlands Lake with Shawna and Amber. It’s a 4 hour drive away from home. It’s also at a really high elevation, just at the tree line, and we didn’t know if there would be some snow, none or a ton.

So I waaaaay over packed. I over packed on clothing, food, and general supplies. I was sooooo determined to NOT forget something that I wound up bringing everything and the kitchen sink! I didn’t even forget milk bones for the dog. Now, come on, that’s amazing packing! And there were no flat tires, no lightning storms, no bears, no mountain lions, no getting lost, no huge fights (just general arguing), no tantrums, no nothing. It was a great trip! I could – not – believe – it! I still don’t believe it. A first camping trip of the season and nothing happened.

We took a long hike on Sat, came back sore and achy, and I made Amber take a hike with me for photography purposes (sunset from a hilltop) and that was pretty much the entire trip. Except – da da duuuunnnn – that night, sitting around the campfire, I saw a pair of glowing eyes watching us from a nearby hill. It was so unexpected that I flipped out a bit. Which probably got Lee a little too freaked out. I think if I had handled it better he wouldn’t have been so upset. But come on. I flicked my crappy flashlight in a casual sort of way across the nearby hill and see two green eyes staring straight at us? It startled me. After some observation as the eyes moved around, I determined that they were canine. Amber said that they couldn’t be wolf eyes. Which was an excellent observation of fact. However I must stop here and argue that regardless of what scientists say – that there’s no wolves in CA – I must point out that scientists often make those claims until some nut in the woods brings back photos from the wilds that prove the scientists wrong. Anyhoo, we guessed that the eyes were from coyotes. Okay, let me stop here again. Coyotes are scavengers. These eyes obviously belonged to a critter that was feasting off of the campground garbage and/or any food carelessly left out. So a scavenger would make sense. But I also saw these eyes raise to a level of height off the ground well about a coyote’s height. True, it’s possible that it could have stood up on its hind legs. Maybe. Lee didn’t want to sleep in the tent. I pointed out that the coyote was around last night and we were fine in the tent. But I admitted that I would sleep better knowing that Abby was safe inside the car. So we loaded ourselves into the car for the night. As we made that decision, we spotted another set of green eyes over to the right of the first pair. Holy cow, we were surrounded! (Not really, there was just the two coyotes – but I even wonder at that because when are there ever just two coyotes? They’re a pack animal…) Anyway, we tucked ourselves into the car, Shawna and Amber went to bed in their tent, and we slept the night away. In the morning we woke up and I searched out where I saw the main set of eyes staring at us for forever. The ground was tore up at the top of the hill. The pine needles were scratched aside and long claw marks raked the dirt. Maybe the coyote was standing on its hind legs a couple times? I dunno. It was creepy.

The rest of the trip was uneventful.

Then, Abby and I accompanied Uncle Mike to Loon Lake for another camping trip.

This time I waaaaaaaay under packed. Just enough food. Just enough clothes (actually I didn’t pack the right amount of clothes for me. I shivered through the night). And just enough play things for Abby. I took Bailey again, and Mike took Kali. Kali is getting up there in years. Poor darling was hobbling and limping and even occasionally just wandering off without direction. A couple times I tried to call her back, but she wouldn’t respond to me. Only Mike could get her to come back. When we went for a hike, it was easily 100 degrees up there, we walked over some granite slabs that burned like a griddle. Bailey’s paws got burned, including two blisters, and Kali could barely move by the time we returned. Mike and I kicked around the idea of taking another hike that evening or the next day, but Mike finally admitted that it probably wasn’t a good idea to take Kali any farther. I think Mike was in denial a little bit about just how old Kali is. I think seeing her not being able to hike like she use to really opened his eyes. So we hung out by the camp and took it easy. I was very ok with this. Mike played a lot with Abby and I just kicked back and relaxed by the lake or in Mike’s hammock. I love hammocks. I should get one for home.

This camping trip involved no wild animals, except the migrating spiders. I could have sworn the last time we caught migrating spiders up there was near the beginning of autumn not summer. Anyway, the pine trees looked like the tops had been dipped in cotton candy. The little boogers were crawling everywhere too. Yuck. At least the mosquitoes were manageable. The only other wild animals we had to contend with were the stupid ass people everywhere. Egads, I loathe inconsiderate campers. You know the type. They only go camping so they can drink alcohol all day, act loud and bothersome, shoot off illegal guns or firecrackers, and crank their gawd-awful music loud enough for the stars to hear. I can’t stand how bad Loon Lake has gotten. I don’t even want to go there anymore unless it’s off-season or a weekday trip. We need to find new stomping grounds and we need to find them quick!

So that’s this season’s camping adventures thus far. Pretty darn tame, I would say. Which is a nice change of pace considering all of the other adventures I could share…