A Plague of Chipmunks

One of my favorite things to do in Port Angeles in the summer is go to Hurricane Ridge and have a picnic.  People who know things about things - me - don't stop at the visitor's center, but go a mile further to a nice and fairly secluded picnic area.

And so we did that the other night.

We didn't feed the wildlife, because there are signs all over everywhere warning us against feeding the wildlife.  But there was some unintentional feeding because the wildlife came and got it.  Really.  A bird swooped down and snitched the end of Uncle Ron's sandwich.*

And then came the plague of chipmunks.

It started off very cute.  A chipmunk lolloped over to us, looking like an actor in  a Disney animated show involving rodents solving crimes.  So I took a picture of him.

And then he got closer to the stroller.

I was becoming nervous at this point.  Very nervous.

And this pretty much put me over the edge.

I shooed it away, and then we noticed that three picnic tables away, there were about 15 chipmunks swarming around, looking like they didn't have enough to do, were letting their tails grow long, and had probably dropped out of chipmunk school but refused to get a steady job.  It was not pleasant.  I decided that I didn't want my daughter eaten by a hoard of angry rodents (or, for that matter, a group of happy rodents, should one of those happen along) and so we packed up and went home.

*For those of you playing along at home, that was my Uncle Ron, not my mother's  (who is sadly deceased, and so rarely accompanies us to Hurrucane Ridge, and certainly doesn't eat sandwiches) nor Margaret's.  And yes, we are aware that we need to get more names.  You should see my cousins - you can't wave a stick at them without hitting 17 Roberts and Stevens.