It was 2:30 in the morning when I first felt it. Something tickled my hand. I peered over at Darren in the darkness, wondering if he was feeling amorous. But no, dead to the world. I put it down to my creative imagination and dozed off.
Half an hour later something nuzzled into my hair and ran over my head. This time I was surely not mistaken. I sat bolt upright and announced to Darren: “We’ve got company!” Groggy from sleep, he stirred slowly and asked how sure I was. “Well… given that it’s got me twice now, pretty damn sure.” The only thing I wasn’t sure about was whether it was a small desert mouse or a large hairy spider.
Darren leapt into action and armed with a torch, he started poking around the deepest darkest corners of the Basecamp. There, under the bed, sat a cute iccle mouse, blinking innocently back up at him in the torchlight. Well it’s one thing to be sat around like butter wouldn’t melt, it’s something else if it takes a liking to chewing through wires. Not to mention that I didn’t relish the thought of it dancing on top of me as I slept.
And so began Operation Get the Mouse Out of the Basecamp.
Darren’s strategy: open the main Basecamp door and coax the mouse out. “Anything I can do to help?” I offered supportively. “Yes – open the door and tie it back”. I paused and thought about that for a moment. That would mean going outside into the freezing night, not a terribly attractive prospect. I snuggled further under the covers. “Erm, I meant anything I can do to help from here?” Darren muttered something under his breath and opened the door.
There was some scuffling, much crawling on all fours, and some darting around in true Tom and Jerry style. I’m pretty sure the mouse didn’t walk out the door, but it was nowhere to be seen. We were getting tired of the drawn out game of hide and seek, and concluded it must have gone out the same way it had got in.
No sign of him the next day either. Regardless, the morning was spent googling how to get rid of mice from an RV!
We unfortunately didn’t get a picture of our little furry friend. So here’s some pictures instead of a very photogenic Alabama Hills. Nestled in the foothills of the Sierras and basking in the shade of Mount Whitney, this is classic Western country. In recognition of that, the main road through Alabama Hills is called Movie Flat Road.
