A midnight fried pie feast

I am breaking my rule about no posting during vacation for one funny story.

Yesterday we emptied our van so that we could get all 6 people in one car and we put the various bags and containers in our tent. It was mostly clothes, so we weren't too worried about anyone stealing it. As night fell, we lined all the bags along the front of our tent and everyone went to bed. It was hot (we are in Arkansas in July so what else would it be?), so I unzipped the bottom of the door to let in more air from the massive fan we have guarding our tent door.

Unfortunately, that fan was no match for a determined raccoon.

You see, one of the things I pulled out of our car was a small canvas cooler. I remembered that I had packed something inside of it, but I couldn't remember what and I didn't think much about it. If I had remembered that I had packed a sack of fried pies inside that cooler, it would've been in the car rather than just inside the door of our tent. But alas, that was not the case.

At some point during the night, a very brave and very hungry raccoon caught a whiff of the sweet, fruity goodness inside of that cooler. That little sucker *got into our tent*, pulled the cooler over onto it's side, opened the top flap, and pulled out that sack of fried pies. He then proceeded to sit right in front of the tent and devoured every single one, probably enjoying the cool breeze from the fan as a bonus. Mr. at Home said he heard the raccoon outside and this morning we found the sack and pie wrappers strewn across the dirt.

As always, there's a lesson in all this. Don't ever leave food in your tent, keep the tent flap zipped shut at all times, and don't trust a fan to guard your door. It can obviously be bribed into silence by hungry raccoons and fried pies.