A mouse in the RV — and a snake!

For more than a year, we had succeeded in not acquiring any stowaways while boondocking. Then one night near Salt Lake City, Utah, while Bob was up late playing a computer game, he saw a little mouse run across our kitchen counter. 

Bob quickly got up to follow the rodent and observed it underneath our TV televator eating tortilla chips that had dropped there, out of reach. Not wanting to be pestered by the nuisance, or encourage it to invite friends, Bob moved things off the counter to where (hopefully) the mouse couldn’t get to them and set a trap. We were getting ready to leave the country for nearly two weeks and didn’t want to return to a mess of destruction.

The next morning, we awoke to a dead fieldmouse. The greedy little thing had died trying to get to a big piece of cheese. 

Snake alert

The next day, Bob returned from a laundromat trip and told me I needed to see the truck. “Oh no!” I thought. “What now?” 

Bob pointed to my sandals, wanting me to put them on to go look at the truck, but something caught my eye. “Why is there a snake in here?” I asked. Knowing that Bob is a prankster, I thought he had intentionally put the small tan snake there to trick me. He hadn’t. 

He grabbed a towel to try to capture the creature to throw outside, but it slithered into the mechanism that allows us to stow our RV stairs for travel and disappeared out of sight. 

We lifted the stairs into the trailer, hoping that would knock the snake loose. No such luck. So, we put the stairs back down, and Bob grabbed a flashlight. From my vantage point outside the rig, I could see a tiny part of the snake’s body, but there appeared to be no easy way to knock it loose. 

Bob got a brilliant idea to fetch a lighter. With it, he literally lit a fire right under the snake, and it eagerly left its perch. Bob was able to throw the snake out of the trailer, but it landed on our top step. That was still too close for comfort. 

Finally, it dropped from the stairs and slithered toward our tires. I didn’t want it anywhere near our living quarters. Bob handed me our fly swatter, and I used that to move the snake farther away from our home. Then Bob came out, scooped up the ready-to-strike (but not rattling) reptile, and flung it over the ridge next to our trailer. Free at last.

Safety nets

Despite those unpleasant encounters, we had a lovely time at our stop in Utah. Every morning and evening, paragliders and hang gliders graced us with alluring views as they flew into the wind over a ridge. We set up our chairs and watched in amazement while relishing the temperate air and the panorama of the Rocky Mountains and Utah Lake.

Fellow RVers Joe and Andrea joined us, and we all agreed we lead an extraordinary life full of incredible experiences, even if some are less desirable than others.

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