After I go home from work in the evening, the campers are under the care of the night host. He's a gentle guy with a calm voice who has been doing this kind of work for years. His job is to be in charge of the camp when everybody else is sleeping. One of the things he occasionally has to do is scare Raccoons away from the area near the dining hall. Last night he heard some sort of commotion in the bushes near the dumpsters, which he thought might have been Raccoons fighting. Then it sounded more like a Raccoon dying. He went over to investigate and heard something large moving through the bushes in the darkness beyond the dumpsters. He made some noise to scare it away and was answered with a low, rumbling growl.

Needless to say, he didn't stick around to see what the growl belonged to. Perhaps a Mountain Lion upset at being interrupted while having a Raccoon snack.

We've decided not to let kids do the solo walk on the night hike tomorrow. Some of these kids aren't much bigger than Raccoons.

Here's a large Pacific Giant Salamander nymph. It's the size of an adult, but it still has gills. Apparently, some of them never go through metamorphosis.




And here's some sun kissed Poison Oak. Some time last week I touched some. I itch a bit.




Someday I'll figure out a way to stop kids from calling it "Poison Ivy." Someday.