I Hate Cats

Last weekend Josh and I took the pups up to his parents property in Sedalia to go camping. They have 14 acres that are surrounded on three sides by the Pike National Forest. Needless to say it's beautiful up there and full of wildlife. We loaded up the Celica, yes all four of us plus a million pounds of camping equipment fit in a Celica, and headed up there on Friday night.

Josh expertly set up camp, in the dark, and we were all next to a perfect camp fire by 10. Around 12 we decided to call it a night and pile in the tent. It's quite spacious and we had a full sized air mattress, it was SO comfy. Rowan decided he was going to ignore the nice pad I made him and instead turned our giant army bag with all our clothes into a his own custom bed. He furiously dug around for a while sending socks and tee shirts flying, then turned 9 thousand circles, and finally with a giant grunt plopped himself down in his nice fluffy nest followed by a huge sigh of relief/comfort. Caleb can sleep anywhere and took over Rowan's abandoned bed, at least it got SOME use.

We all fall asleep quickly after a long hard week plus all the fresh air. At around 4am, the oh so beautiful wildlife I spoke of tried to freaking EAT US!!!

Let me clarify. At around 4am Rowan's alarms went off and he started barking like a SOB. Not a "hey look a bunny" bark, this was a "we are in danger, must protect my family" bark. I almost peed my pants he sounded so scary. I get him and the rest of the tent somewhat settled down, only to have a freaking MOUNTAIN LION scream and set everyone off again. HERE is why, listen to what the damn things sound like! The thing had to be no more than 20 feet from the tent. Josh starts frantically searching for the spotlight and shotgun (we were prepared for bears) and I was simply trying to keep my s**t together. My number one priority was to find dog leashes, then my shoes, of all things. We find our necessities and Josh, being our fearless leader, pops his head out the tent to try and spot/scare off the damn thing. Well we can't see the lion anywhere, so we stay in the tent and keep an eye out the windows. After about 20 minutes, Rowan seems at ease, i.e. back in his bag, so we all climb back in our beds too.

About 3 minutes later Rowan starts doing his "chicken bark," kind of a "buff, buff, buff" sound, then goes full out again with the full alert "I'm going to eat your SOUL!!" bark. Josh quickly looks out the window and the MOFO was 10 feet from the GD tent!!! He just starts yelling as ferociously as he can, Rowan is still barking, and Caleb says what the hell I'll join in too. Apparently my three boys cussing the lion out as loud as possible was enough to scare the f-ing thing off for good. We settle back down and try to get some rest.

The next morning, Rowan was incredibly interested in sniffing this big rock about 3 feet from the tent. I have a feeling that's where it was...SCARY. So thanks to my hound dog and his little side kick we did not get eaten by the wildlife. We spent another night in the same spot, but Josh built a fortress around our tent. Nothing was getting in without us knowing, and we were fully equipped with firearms. Rowan wakes us up again around 3 or 4 and we hear it screaming, but it was way far off terrorizing some other family. Oh and Rowan had moved into our 2 person sleeping bag on the air mattress....

According to Josh's dad, female mountain lions make that sound when looking for a mate, maybe she had the hots for Rowan? They too have spotted lions in the woods, hence the guns. They are known to snatch up children surrounded by adults in broad daylight, so if you are ever camping where the MIGHT be one, take a gun and take your dog. Amen. And now for some pics: