Mice...

Mice are cute. They really are. But sometimes they aren't cute, like when you are laying down on a hard wooden platform outdoors. In the shelters, as soon as the sun goes down, you begin to hear the pitter patter of stubby nail covered feet scratching all around the shelter. The mice run past you, behind you, over you and under you and occasionally they stop on top of you. They are looking for food, of course, and they will chew and eat through your $200 pack and gear to get it.

Meanwhile, you are laying there trying to cover up inside your sleeping bag and hope they don't eat something you don't want them to eat or chew up your sleeping bag.

In one shelter recently, there was a bottle cap on a platform above where I was sleeping - For 4 hours, these mice were playing soccer with this cap kicking it back and forth from one side of the shelter to the other and occasionally a mouse would fall off the platform on top of my sleeping bag.

It was a very restless night.

They say that you adjust to them eventually, but I don't know. I guess you can adjust to the possums that run through your shelter too, like the one last night that was sniffing everyone while we were laying there.

Lots to adjust to.