Stowaway!

Short Version:
Critters, a short ride, a new campsite, an uninvited guest

Long Version:
We thought we'd found yet another sweet campsite (in the woods / no-one around / free), but when it came to sleep o'clock, we were so scared of the forest noises that we slept in the Reaper again. Unfortunately for us, the critters making the noises were absolutely fascinated by the Reaper's presence in their secluded woodland home, and investigated it thoroughly. All night. Again, I could've sworn they were inside the van as well as running around on every conceivable surface*, and the upshot was a significant sleep deficit the next morning as we set off to ride the riverside trail of the Oak Grove Fork of the Clackamas River.

Our progressively more and more discredited Central Oregon mountain-biking guidebook called this trail "the best riverside trail in Oregon," which, in light of the awesomeness of the trails that we'd ridden along the North Umpqua, the Middle and North Forks of the Willamette, and the McKenzie, was a blimmin big call. And, we discovered, a seriously erroneous one. That's not to say that the trail was unenjoyable - far from it - but at under four miles long it would've had to have been pretty exceptional to outdo its longer siblings. It had pretty surrounds, a lovely riding surface along most of its length, and an interesting array of short, sharp climbs and descents, some of which were open and fast, while others straddled the border between sketchy (off-camber blown-out steep switchbacks) and tricky (a broken but still rideable log bridge). At forty minutes or so each way it's not a destination ride, even with the swim in the cold-but-refreshing tributary thrown in, but if you're in the area it's worth a ride - especially if the similar-but-longer nearby circuit of Timothy Lake is as overflowing with non-bike traffic as it was on this fine summer weekend.

We made our way back into the wilderness area south of Hood River and east of Mt Hood, and let a bobcat select our campsite. There were deer and chipmunks everywhere, and we had spectacular views of Mt Hood and Mt Adams bathed in afternoon sunlight as we relaxed. The lizard resident in the firepit kept a beady eye on us**, and bees festooned the van - we think they were snaffling the pollen which had attached to the paint as we drove the narrow, flower-lined backroads.

The mystery of the noises in the van in the night took another twist in the early evening, as scuttling creature sounds were clearly audible from within the ceiling space. We have a stowaway! Too many gaps and spaces between panels for us to block access, and too many screws to undo on too many panels to strip the interior, so we repacked all our foods and put sealed lids on the containers - let's see you nibble our bits now, critter!

We slept the whole night in the tent, with minimal wakefulness, right up until the world's noisiest squirrel started a cacophonous diatribe in the light of the early morning sun. We'd have unliked the beast, but had already slept longer than planned, and being awake meant we got to see the bunny with the really short ears hopping about the place, which was kind of cool.

* = Roof, chassis, bumpers, mirrors. Anything even remotely horizontally-oriented was fair game for the wee buggers.

** = On both of us, at the same time. Freaky beast.