It was our 25th wedding anniversary and we were spending it doing what we love best, camping of course. If you are relatively new to camping as we are you hear all the warnings and stories about animals looking for food whether it is bears, raccoons, birds or whatever: “Don’t feed the wildlife, hang your food from a tree, lock it in your car”. We have had raccoons crawl on our camper at night and in the morning seen their tracks everywhere, especially all over the truck where we stashed our food for the night. So we had some experience with these pesky critters.
So here we are at one of the most beautiful Florida state parks we have ever seen-Hillsborough River. We were trying out a new camper we had bought as an anniversary present to each other. We had a gorgeous camp site nestled in a hammock of live oaks, cabbage palms, Florida holly and magnolias just a few yards from the river. The weather was perfect. After setting up we noticed something. The squirrels were huge and practically surrounded us. There were dozens all around our site begging. They would come right up to the camper door and even come sniff your feet if you stood still long enough. We of course did not feed them and tried to ignore them. We had lots of plans: canoeing, hiking, fishing.
The next day we planned a hike after lunch. The weather was so nice I left the camper windows open to catch the breezes. We had a wonderful hike along the river. After which we headed back to start preparing our anniversary dinner. We approached the camper and my husband exclaimed “there is a squirrel in the camper!” I said “you’re kidding!” But as we looked in sure enough he was running circles all around the camper trying to get out. My husband went in to chase him out and I handing him the broom. What a scene; seeing him running around the camper chasing this squirrel with a broom. He finally got him to go out the front door and I went in to access the damage. He had eaten a hole through the window screen to get in. Our new camper was now christened. He tried unsuccessfully to get into a package of sweet rolls after which he gave up and settled for a bag of dinner rolls. The little bugger! The camper was a mess. We were NOT happy campers! But looking back the scene was hilarious.
Needless to say after that I learned my lesson. NO more food in the camper unless I was cooking. No more open windows when we left. They pestered us the entire trip looking in windows and begging for food. We knew these squirrels had done this before. The big male who broke in was relentless and kept trying to get in the camper. You could tell he was the alpha male by the way he chased the other squirrels away of and by the size of his family jewels. We called him little big nuts. Lesson learned-never underestimate the ability of animals to get to food.
We went to the store and bought some repellant which touted its ability to repel rodents, squirrels included. It did not work. They sniffed it and carried on about their begging and searching. If anyone knows of any sure fire way to repel squirrels, PLEASE let us know! Only humane and green suggestions please. We try our best to have a green campsite!
The Happy Camper- well most of the time
