Day 4 (Part 1) - There's a Moose Under Our Bed!

You know, after a super long hike all you want to do is sleep. So, that's what we planned on doing. Sleeping. Which we did. We were dead to the world until 2 a.m. That's when I awoke very suddenly to the sound of a plastic Wal-Mart-like bag rustling violently.

At first I thought, "Oh man, the air conditioner/heater came on and is blowing on one of the bags. I'm going back to sleep." But then I immediately realized, "Wait just one second, there is no air conditioner in her and this room is 100 years old and there's a little heater high on the wall that's nowhere near any plastic bags in our room! HOLY CRAP (pardon my French...I was very alarmed) THERE IS SOMETHING ALIVE BESIDES US IN OUR ROOM!!!" I sat straight up in bed. This would be the point that Doug stirs just a little bit and starts to realize I am no longer lying next to him but sitting next to him and getting a little agitated.

He says, "What are you doing?"

I respond, "There's something making a noise in the plastic bag."

He groggily replies, "It'll be fine. Go back to sleep."

So, me, being the brave girl that I am layed warily back down in bed with full intentions of lying there freaking out inside sleeping. Until...

I heard slow footsteps walking around my side of the bed. That was it...I was done! There was no silent freaking out happening with something walking along my side of the bed. I sat straight up again and started violently shaking Doug this time! "Doug wake up!!!! There is something alive in our room!!!"

"It'll be fine. Go back to sleep!"

I kinda sit there for a second and imagine every animal imaginable at now 2:15 a.m. My thoughts ranged from a mouse, to a wild cat, to a ground squirrel, to even the micro-bear Doug was telling us about earlier (I told you it was early in the morning...imaginations are horrible things sometimes). This caused me to panic more and I began to think I was going to hyperventilate.

"I can't! It's walking around by my side of the bed. You have to get up and find it!!"

"Fine."

He turns the light on and gets his flashlight out. He takes a look under the bed a couple of times and declares it holy ground (although, I'm was not walking barefoot down there in case something decided to grab my toes).

He tells me all will be fine and to try and sleep. At this point I am literally shaking and he has to remind me to breathe. I can still hear those stupid footsteps. Everytime I did I tensed up which also bothered Doug.

I knew that it was probably a mouse, but I read Fox News far too much and lately there has been a crazy trend of babies getting eaten by mice until they die or lose fingers, toes, and parts of noses. Everytime I closed my eyes I imagined getting overtaken by mice and having my toes gnawed off. It wasn't a pretty sight. It was just easier to keep my eyes open. Needless to say, not a lot of sleep was had after that.

Doug got up a couple hours later to take sunrise pics. He totally left me in that room to fend for myself against the mouse gang. Good thing I'm scary cuz they stayed away.

Later when we were ready for breakfast and heading downstairs Doug announced we were getting a mouse trap so he wouldn't have to deal with me flipping out in the middle of the night again. Now, the people that work there are from all over the world. The man we chose to talk to was from France, and this how the conversation went:

Doug: We have a mouse in our room.
Frenchman: (pointing to gift shop) Gift shop.
Me: (thinking) What the heck?!
Doug: No, we have a mouse in our room.
Frenchmen: A moose?
Me: (thinking) Yes, sir, a moose crawled through the window in the middle of the night and won't leave.
Doug: No, a mouse...we need a trap.
Frenchman: (confusion written all over this poor kid's face) Trap a moose?
Doug: Do you know what a mouse is? (using hands to show size and how they skitter around a room) A rodent. Small. Has diseases.
Frenchman: No, I don't know mOUse.

I then see someone grab a net on the end of long stick and then know that this is going nowhere fast. This gentleman is American and knows about such things as mice. He tells us they can't kill them (they can't even kill bugs) because they are protected animals.

You have got to be kidding me. This protected animal tried to eat my toes the night before and it's okay. Two gentlemen take their little butterfly net and skip off to our room.

There was no hope. We had a roommate and he was not leaving anytime soon. I named him Scooter.

Tune in tomorrow for Day 4 (Part 2) - How Old Am I?