Frosty and Friends, Mushroom Stumps & Laundry

Umqua Lighthouse State Park – Bandon/Port Orford KOA, Oregon

This is a story about raccoons. I tell you that because you might be kind of confused otherwise.

Part I.

The story starts last December. I’m heading out for a ski with our daughter Lauren. It’s been warm and rainy, but it snowed a little the previous evening – so we thought conditions might have improved. 

We tromp through the backyard, and now it’s time to head down the sometimes-treacherous hill to the ski trails. It’s a little steep, so years ago I set up a rope to grab onto as you descend. With the rain and warm weather we figure it’s icy on the main trail, where we’ve installed some makeshift stairs.

I grab the rope and start down the hill – being careful to step to the side, where it’s hopefully not as slick. 

Bam!

Wow, that was quick. It turns out that it is icy everywhere. There is nothing more slippery than a few inches of powdery snow over the top of ice. And ski boots don’t exactly have traction. 

I am down before I know what happened – the only anchor is my left hand – which is still attached to the rope. I don’t think much of that at the time though. I’m more focused on my face – which smashed directly into the ice-covered ground, giving me a near concussion, and drawing blood across my cheek where it scraped on the ice and snow. 

It isn’t until later that day that I realize the real damage was to my shoulder – which had to bear the brunt of all my weight going down in a flash. I think the fall hyperextended it backwards. 

For the rest of the winter the shoulder hurts whenever I ski more than an hour or so. Worse, the shoulder really hurts at night. I’m a side sleeper, and, I never realized it before, but I’m really a left side sleeper. Well, can’t do that anymore. 

Part II.

What I’ve realized is that my now-bad shoulder really doesn’t like tent camping. I think it’s the uneven ground – there’s lots of little isometric muscles working to keep you in place, and it must be taxing on whatever I tore in my shoulder last winter. 

When it starts really hurting it can keep me up most of the night – a dull ache – like a tooth ache almost. Not good, especially when we’re biking this much. Really need my beauty sleep . . .

So I’ve started taking ibuprofen before I go to bed. And if it’s really bad I’ll take Tylenol PM – and then I’m pretty much out like a light. 

Such was last evening. 

Part III.

It’s the dead of the night – probably 2 a.m.

“John,” and then a poke. 

I was in a deep, comfortable sleep.

“Do you hear that noise?”

“Ha?” I’m so groggy from the various pharmaceuticals that nothing is really registering. 

And then I hear it.

Diana described it well. It’s like the noises the gremlins make in the movie. Or like the snuffling of the RUS (rodents of unusual size) in the fireswamp in The Princess Bride (because, let’s face it, just about everything in life can be made to relate to The Princess Bride in some way). 

There’s also the distinct sound of wrappers. 

I grab my headlight and strike out into the night. 

Sure enough, I’m greeted by a number of beady eyes. They are not running away. They are just sitting there, glaring at me. 

“Hey, excuse me. We’re trying to enjoy our dinner here. Do you want something? Oh, and can you pass the ketchup? This Cliff Bar is kind of tasteless. I mean, who eats this stuff? Did you actually pay money for this?”

Insolent little thieves!

I feint a lunge at them, and they head a few feet into the woods – just to keep up appearances, I guess. 

Now I go do an appraisal of the damage. 

Diana’s front pack is wide open – and empty, and there are gloves (Diana has about 42 pair of gloves – because you never know when your hands might be cold in this arctic environment . . .), glasses and other paraphernalia scattered about on the ground. But there is no food – that’s all been hauled off into the woods. 

My front pack is still unscathed at this point, so I take it over to the food locker provided by the campground – the same food locker that I put our main food bag in last night. The same food locker that I should have put all this other stuff in – if I had only been thinking clearly.

When I return, the snuffling and wrapper crumpling party is back in full swing. In fact, it’s such a wild party that a fight breaks out between two of the raccoons – apparently in a dispute over who gets the rest of my PayDay candy bar. 

I throw a log at the beady eyes. Again they move a few feet into the woods. 

And then Diana asks about her clothes bag.

“Did you have food in it?” I ask. (I should have known the answer – if there’s one thing Diana is, it’s a food hoarder . . .)

And now I’m groping through the underbrush trying to find Diana’s clothes pannier – which the raccoons have apparently pulled into the woods. 

I’m envisioning them going through her clothes like a pack of the Minions from Despicable Me (another great movie). They’re trying on her bikini – Ooh, la, la – and then throwing it off into the woods. Another is wearing her bike shorts and cute biking jersey and pretending to cycle. 

“This is a nightmare,” I think, as I try to pick my way through the dense undergrowth. The snuffling and wrapper crumpling continues, unabated . . .

“Oh, I found it,” Diana says. “They don’t have my clothing bag after all . . .”

So that’s how we spent our night . . .

You might think that all this would lead to a bad today. 

Quite the contrary. We had a great day.

Met some fellow bikers from Colombia.

Biked a ways ourselves. Had the wind at our back.

Met some other nice people. Biked through the town – Coos Bay – where Steve Prefontaine hailed from.

Found some chanterelles. And made an amazing campground dinner of rotisserie chicken and chanterelle scampi. 

A little explaining on the chanterelles. 

As we biked back to the main road from the campground we came upon a guy climbing out of the woods with some big orange-ish mushrooms. We stopped to ask, and he explained that they were, you guessed it, chanterelles.

“My dog is in the car,” and he gestured toward a pickup truck by the side of the road. “He loves chanterelles; he guides me right to them.”

Pretty cool to have the canine equivalent to a truffle pig. 

Didn’t think much more of this encounter until later in the afternoon. We’re biking up a big hill on our way out of Coos Bay when we see two big five gallon buckets sitting in the middle of the shoulder of the road. 

One is completely full of chanterelles and the other is half full of what looks like a related variety of mushrooms. Seriously, there must be $250 in mushrooms sitting there . . .

Now my mind is working. 

I race up the hill with a new plan. I know Diana won’t want to stop for a mushroom hunting excursion, but I’m determined. Once I reach the top I put the bike down and dive into the woods. 

Within 30 seconds I’ve found three clumps of chanterelles. Unfortunately, all three have been harvested already. All that’s left are mushroom stumps. Which, I guess, explains why those buckets were full  . . .

Drat. 

I head off the beaten path into dense, dense forest – like the kind of place only raccoons can get to. I’m on my hands and knees, literally crawling around. 

Diana is calling for me now. 

“Come help me find mushrooms,” I implore her . . . (I know full well there is no way she’s doing this . . . But a guy can hope . . .)

As I crawl around I manage to find a few little scraps missed by Mr. and Mrs. Buckets – enough for dinner anyway. 

Pretty happy about this. 

And dinner, it was amazing. 

Final highlight of the day . . . We are staying in the Grand Hotel of campgrounds tonight – the KOA. They have laundry and a sink with hot water to wash our dishes. This is luxury!