The Call of the Wild

January 31

Tonight's post is being written seventy-two hours after the fact because for the last seventy-two hours we have been completely cut-off from the digital world - no cell phone service and no internet.

Maureen made it out to our campsite at Lake Skinner on Wednesday (without her dog Mabel, which would later prove to be a blessing) and Mary Ellen was thrilled to have someone to pal around with for twenty-four hours. Although we had gotten used to it, Maureen was shocked how "far out in the boonies" we were. We had told her about the coyotes and sure enough just after it got completely dark they began warming up for the night. Now each night before turning in I take Daisy for a walk; at Skinner Lake this proved to be about twenty minutes each night and took us pretty deeply into the empty darkness, even though we could still see our RV a distance away. But we were only out for about a minute when they really started up and this time it wasn't in the distant hills or up on the mountain but rather three or four hundred yards away and in the campground itself. And they were having a great old time for themselves, yelping, barking, howling and knocking each other around. The walk was shortened considerably and back we went into the light. I'm not really frightened of them, having had them sneak up behind me in the middle of the night to steal my bait while I was surf casting for striped bass on Sandy Hook. But I was afraid for Daisy. Most people think that when coyotes come across a domesticated dog they revert to that "Call Of The Wild" thing and get them to join their pack. In fact, what they actually do is kill and eat them. Anyone who has lived in the hills around the greater Los Angeles area knows someone whose dog or cat ended up being dinner for these scraggly curs. So I was grateful Daisy had made it back home in one piece.

Now what follows is strictly second-hand as I slept through the whole thing. Around 4AM all of their commotion started up again but this time it was right around our motorhome. They were apparently directly under our windows, fighting, howling, nipping each other and just going berserk. At one point Mary Ellen and Maureen could hear one scratching at the front steps, apparently trying to get in. Daisy was at the top of the steps leading down to the door with ears and tail straight up, hackles raised and her gaze riveted on the door, waiting for the first miscreant to try and enter. Had Maureen brought Mabel we would have been peeling her off the ceiling as she makes Daisy look calmly serene.

Finally, some guy who apparently had previous experience with them opened his window and began clapping his hands and yelling "Shoo!" which was enough to send them fleeing in terror back to the hills. But just to show there were no hard feelings, before departing one of them pissed all over our new outdoor rug which we had just unwrapped and put out before dark

This morning Mary Ellen announced she was finished with "camping in the dirt" so we have agreed instead to continue on "touring the country in our motorhome." Very civilized...