mice:
as commenting on my current emotional status would take too long…and would undoubtedly change before i could conclude a proper summary of it…i will avoid the depths of my mind and give you humor:
some of you are aware, others not, that along the trail are shelters. one comes across these one or two a day and they are the perfect escape from the elements. wet tents are not awesome. but, the shelters do have their drawbacks. first is obviously the snorer. every shelter inevitably ends up with a snorer. the one who keeps the rest of us tossing and turning and wondering if sleeping in the rain is really a valid option. this creates less humor than problem number two. mice. the shelters are home to mice. and not just a few. they live there in numbers. the thing is you never see them. maybe one brave one in the morning, but for the most part they exist only in the night. and, for the most part, your only interaction with one will be the two or three times one runs over your head and wakes you up with a little pitter patter on your forehead. some wake with a start, headlamp on and knife in hand in hopes of chasing one down. others simple swat at the empty space above their head where a mouse stood moments before and then roll over and back to sleep. that is what you need to know for our stories.
one: an older gentleman dubbed tunnel rat, from his army days, woke a couple of days ago like any normal morning. he ate, packed up, laced on him boots and headed out for a days hike. five miles in he sat for a break to enjoy lunch, kicked off his shoes and sat back…yep, a mouse rolled out of his shoe. you can’t make this stuff up. he hiked five miles with a now not so alive mouse in his boot. how? really, i dont know.
two: this morning we again woke in a shelter. now, this shelter was built with an open room below and something like bunks above the main floor for the hikers to sleep on. we all had heard the mice below us in the night dragging what sounded like acorns back and forth along the floor so we began the daily chack of gear to see if the mice had chewed through anything, as they are known to do. Adris, opened his pack and found an acorn sitting on top or his gear. we laughed as he tossed it aside and joked that they were using his pack as a storehouse. but, as he began removing other items a rattle grew from the flow of acorns down to the bottom of the bag. we chuckled in disbelief, but by the time everything was out and we peered in there were nothing short of 50 or so acorns gathered bunched at the base of his pack. really, i couldnt make this stuff up. these mice were busy…all night stowing acorns away in his pack. this one i have a picture of. i’ll post it in a couple weeks.
