[You may view a map of Capitol Reef National Park in PDF format.]

Mouse In The Night

Shortly after I got into bed last night, I heard something like a mouse running around the inside of the RV and I had a really hard time falling asleep. Then I didn't sleep well because about the time I drifted off the mouse would make a noise and wake me up.

Around 3:15, J asked if I heard something, like someone trying the door, and I said it sounded like a mouse. I got out of bed and looked for the mouse traps that I thought we had in the RV and I couldn't find them. All the while, J watched the mouse run back and forth across the living room and gave me a play-by-play report on its activity. Then J got out of bed to look for the traps, and she couldn't find them either. We put the bread, that we usually store on the counter behind the stove, in the microwave to keep it away from the mouse, then went back to bed.

About ten minutes later, I got out of bed to check one of the small open bins under the dinette to see if there was a bag of cracked corn in it that I sometimes use to attract birds. Sure enough, there was a quart-sized (0.95l) Ziplock bag of cracked corn that had been eaten through. I got out a gallon-sized (3.8l) Ziplock bag to put the ramains in, then put the whole thing in the microwave to keep it away from the mouse. I got back in bed and finally got some good sleep.

Mouse Fallout In The Morning

We got up a little later than usual after that terrible night's sleep, and I felt violated — our private RV was now a mouse hotel. We checked the boxes of cereal under the kitchen sink to see if the mouse had tried any of them, and they were all intact. J cleaned under the sink with bleach while we had everything out just in case and I worked up a blog entry. We prepped the RV to move and I stowed the solar-electric panels because we're going to move camp today: we no longer have to be close to the roads to Cathedral Valley, and maybe the mouse left the RV this morning and we can leave it behind. We left around 9:55 with me in the RV and J in the Jeep.

We went to the Capitol Reef National Park Visitor Center to look around. We asked the ranger on duty about the roads to Cathedral Valley, and she confirmed that the roads from UT-24 were impassable and also let us know that the road from the northwest, where we had been a few days ago, was also impassable before reaching the good formations.

We reached a nice boondocking spot just to the west of Capitol Reef National Park, and were leveled with our solar-electric panels tilted by 11:45. We had a good enough Verizon Wireless National Access signal to go online and I uploaded more images to my stock agent while having lunch and working on the blog entry. I left by myself in the Jeep around 12:50.

I went to the Chuckwagon General Store in Torrey to buy some mouse traps.

Then I went to the Farm Service Center in Loa to get some gasket material to seal up a gap under our slide where I think the mouse came in. They didn't have what I was looking for, but I got some weather stripping for a garage door that would be better than nothing. At least it would help keep out the cold air if not more mice.

On my way back, I stopped at the Sinclair in Bicknell to top off the Jeep at $2.829/gal.

While I was gone, J, the former virologist, did some research and found out that hantavirus, a mouse-borne virus, is in the area — oh joy.

I returned to the RV around 2:10 and finished the blog entry while J put out the mouse traps. I went outside and installed a section of garage door weather stripping under our slide. J and I talked about things we wanted to do here in Capitol Reef National Park, then we left in the Jeep around 3:50.

Got Our Minds Off The Mouse

We entered Capitol Reef National Park and took the Scenic Drive south. Then we took the Capitol Gorge Road and stopped to photograph several times as the road wound through the fantastic gorge. I used the shift function for the image of the dead tree so I could look up without tilting the camera up in order to avoid keystoning.

We returned to the RV around 7:20 and the mouse traps were still empty. It would have been so nice to have killed our invader(s) while we were gone.

We had dinner of J's sour cream chicken enchiladas and fresh guacamole — one of my favorite meals.

After dinner, I downloaded and downselected the images from today then I processed two images for the blog.