The only downside to camping with me - I'm clinically terrified of insects of any kind, even dead ones. :(

Thankfully, it's never been too much a problem, but there was a time a few summers ago, when I awoke to find a grasshopper that invaded my tent. I ran out, screaming. Thank the gods I was camping with friends who know me well enough to just shrug it off, and go in and catch the grasshopper for me. (Although, they did laugh, but that's ok - I'm used to it. ;) )

Source

See, I told you. I tried to warn y'all. Is this anyone's son here on LoT? I hope not.

:eek: :p :D

I've been group camping before where one of our campers across the site had a bear seriously sit on her head while she was sleeping. The bear had decided to lie next to her tent, but kinda "rolled" onto it, right where her head was. She actually laughed about it. At that same campout, one group had their cooler broken into over night. The bear left the expensive steaks alone, but took the donuts and beer. They found about 6 empty cans with tooth punctures scattered nearby. :D

Bears can somewhat be fun.

If you mean JW and lash... then I could see your point. But animal bears with the claws and the biting and the roaring... nuh uh. :D I've seen 'Grizzly Man'.

You've obviously never been to a bear party. Lots of claws, biting, and roaring! ;)

The reason it is fun can't be explained. It either is or it isn't.

I look forward to one day climbing out of my tent and finding a bear in the middle of camp. I hope it doesn't kill me, but the risk is worth it.

It's seriously a cool experience.

I've also personally experienced a small pack of coyotes (4 or 5 of 'em) in my camp when I awoke in the middle of the night to walk to the bathroom. I still walked alone, passing just within feet of them. They looked quite scared of me, and were just beautiful animals.

I was more concerned about the family of raccoons that invaded our bowl of guacamole later that evening though, thus spoiling our chance at leftovers. Looks like they enjoyed it too. Greedy little buggers. And, I could swear I heard them laughing at us. (All though, that was probably just their regular "chittering" sounds.)

Animals love me for some reason - I'm like a magnet for 'em. I've hand-fed many squirrels in the forest, and have even had a feral cat come sit on my lap and purr. That last one put my fellow campers in awe, because they all tried coaxing him with various food items that he ignored and even ran away from.

I've also had a ground squirrel climb into my tent overnight.

I only intentionally feed squirrels though, usually with raw nuts and/or berries that would be native to the area I'm camping in.

Coyotes are like pine cones; all over the place. I had them in camp many times and they're very timid. Hard to be scared of them.

You were right to be more worried about the raccoons. People mostly follow the rules about bears but think it is cute to feed raccoons and they can be just as persistent about getting food once they think part of it is theirs.

Actually, all the times I've run into animals the only time I was scared was the youngest ever. Once, hiking in the Oregon lava flows we walked into a shallow cave. Inside was a mountain lion cub. No sign of mom and you can bet we didn't stick around very long to see if she'd show up.