Rapture and Anguish

Will and I enjoyed a little jaunt with our 5th wheel over to Ontario last weekend for the wedding of a friend (of which I will post and share some pictures soon). The highlights of my exciting life are the adventures that happen while taking walks in different places where we camp. The first night, we were at Hilgard State Park right on the Grande Ronde River. What a beautiful walk.

Will recently signed me up with a Twitter account, and I had never tweeted. I decided this picture was a worthy first tweet, so I Twittered it out there the next day. I felt bad when I realized my first Tweet was a lie, because I said it was a morning walk, and it was actually the evening walk. But I have no idea how to recall it.


We spent the next few nights at the "Neat Retreat RV Park, nestled along the Oregon/Idaho border between Ontario and Payette in Fruitland, Idaho". The first evening, I didn't join Will and Zeek on the evening walk - not interested in walking along a busy city street. He came back and showed me a lovely picture of a river. He is so smart, he took a walk in the quiet residential area behind the RV park and found a river nearby. 


So the next evening, I followed along. This little bridge led to overgrown paths, and I almost felt like I was out exploring the wilderness. I love this kind of thing.

 I explored the area, bravely overcame obstacles and bushwhacked to a log to take in the view.

It seemed a great idea to Tweet another picture to my Twitter "followers", all three of them (my husband, my son Nick, and my husband's sister Sue). So I snapped a photo to tweet later.

Then I turned to look at the river, and to my complete consternation, felt my left hand squish into something very disgusting on the log. I looked down and saw a poop pile flattened by my hand. My cries of dismay rang out into the evening air, destroying the peaceful riverside scene, while I frantically scrubbed my hand against the log. 


My phone camera was still in my right hand and I looked down and saw this horrifying sight reflected back at me. I snapped the picture before carefully putting the phone in my pocket with my clean right hand. Just to prove my complete lack of vanity, I am sharing it here. Pitiful and heart wrenching, isn't it. Pure anguish.

I asked Will if he could identify what kind of poop it was, and his best guess was raccoon. Stupid uncouth raccoons. I actually took a picture of the squished poop, but it is really revolting and I am far too polite to share it with you. I'll delete it as soon as I have a chance to show it to my boys. I will make them look at it whether they want to or not because it is my duty to make sure they know how much I suffered.

I found a spot where I could rinse my hand in the river, and we headed back. Nearby we saw some bloody partially eaten animal entrails in the water...and Will was kind enough to remind me that I had just washed my hands in the water. 

On the way back, Will let Zeek practice staying while he walked away. What a good dog.

Fortunately, the rest of our walk was uneventful. Upon our return, I washed my hands thoroughly with soap four times and then dried them on Will's towel. Then I liberally applied hand sanitizer and felt almost ok.

I joined Will in our grassy area at the Neat Retreat and composed my Tweet. I had to revise a few times to get it under the 140 character limit. Eventually I posted with my happy face picture: "A pleasant view from a log interrupted by the horror of my hand squishing raccoon poop - another memorable evening walk." 

Then I saw Will's Tweet. "She screamed POOP I PUT MY HAND ON POOP it was so funny." I'm pretty sure he didn't spend a lot of time on his word selection.

Can't wait until our next evening walk....at the Metolius before we know it!