As we drove into the the Davis Mountains State Park I began to give my kids some pro camping tips I would like for them to follow. As is customary my kids saw my mouth moving and hit the mute button in their brain. The information being yapped at them was not interesting or exciting and therefore also not useful.
So here I am saying things like keep your dirty shoes out of your tent, keep all food put away because critters, etc. You, my dear reader, probably think these reminders are so obvious that it insults my children’s intelligence to remind them of such things. I assure you it does not. These reminders are necessary.
So case in point. We left our camp site to go to the McDonald observatory. (If you are near by please go! Day or night!!) We spent the evening trying to point out the Big Dipper to Nathan who was saying things like “the really bright star by the medium bright star right there?” While pointing in the general direction of I don’t know, 80 million stars. (The answer is yes. “Yes Nathan. That’s the one”)
When the star party was over we returned to camp. When we turned into our camp site our headlights settled on our picnic table. There was about 10 collared peccaries gathered around. (Collared peccaries are pigs for those wondering. Wild pigs. The biggest one weighing maybe 40-60 pounds. And the smallest couldn’t weigh more than about 15 pounds.)
Looking back I deeply regret that when we saw the pigs I didn’t (a)Take a picture of them destroying our stuff and (b) I didn’t take a picture of the kids faces when they saw the pigs.
Doug and I bounded out of the car and ran at the pigs waving wildly and throwing rocks. They looked at us. 0% impressed with the fit these 2 crazy people were throwing. Oma (who braved this family camp out like a champ) and the kids joined us in scaring off the piggies and cleaning up the mess. Turns out the pigs destroyed our plates, forks, spoons, cups, and other non food items for the 2 bags of cough drops and 1 bag of probiotics. They were very careful to leave the wrappers behind. Not a cough one was heard out of the piggies for the next week. And their tummies never were that healthy.
I returned to the car for something. I’m perched on the driver seat, half in half out. The pigs come back. Avery grabs a rock and throws a bolder fast ball directly into Oma’s face. Oma shrieks. Avery says in her most accusing voice “MYA!” Mya holds up empty hands “I’m not even holding a rock!” So Avery turns on her brother “NATHAN!” But he was talking to me at the car. Plus I had watched the whole thing unfold. Avery was the guilty party as sure as you and I live and breathe. Not that it mattered to Oma who had thrown it. Here she is surrounded by wild pigs eating cough drops by the mouthful, eyebrow split open, blood on her face and no doubt a splitting headache.
We finally got the mess cleaned up. We raked cough drops up out of the dirt. Every thing was put in the car and everyone was put to bed. Well. Not everyone. The pigs were back to see if any cough drops remained. Doug got up and chased them off. Doug got back in the tent. The pigs were back. Oma got up and chased them off. The pigs came back. We all agreed they were welcome to have a look around. We were done chasing them off.
The next day as we discussed the visitors from the night before I said “see. That’s why I told y’all we have to keep our food put away”
Avery: “but when did you say that?”
🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🙄🙄🙄
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