Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Trans-WI: Wildlife in Bathrooms

The first two days of the trip I found surprising wildlife in the bathrooms I visited.  Not worth noting alone, I thought they'd make a fun blog post together.

First, there was this spider in the stall in the men's bathroom at Yellowstone Lake State Park.  It was easily the largest spider I had ever seen north of the Mason-Dixon line.  The spread of its legs was about that of the palm of my hand!  It didn't seem to mind my coming and going, and it was even kind enough to not jump on my face when I took this close-up photo of it:

The next night we stayed at Nelson Dewey State Park.  That night we rode out a storm in our tent.  In the morning, in the seemingly sealed, clean bathroom with modern pluming, I found a treefrog in the toilet:

I shewed him out of the toilet, scooped him up, then took him outside to the nearest tree.  Then of course, I washed my hands.

The last wildlife in the bathroom incident took place days later.  I had just ridden through the grassy, overgrown trails in the "Kimberly-Clark Wildlife Area" and part of the reason that bit of trail was so rough was that I had to poop the whole time.  I found a vacation cabin with an outhouse in back, so I decided I would make use of it.  Since the house had modern plumbing, it seemed the outhouse wasn't used much.  I began to "drop my load" and heard a high-pitched squeak in protest.  As soon as I was able to, I jumpped up off of the seat!  It was the screech of a bat, who had apparently decided that the inside of a pit toilet was a good roost!  I still had to wipe though, they didn't like that either.  I got out of there as quickly as I could, I didn't feel like getting rabies from getting bit on the butt  by a bat in an out-house!

The rest of the wildlife I encountered on the trip were outside, where they belong.

1 comment: