Rose Dickson
11 November 2008
2234 – 2250 hours
Facing the Millstream, on the bridge near the library on Willamette University campus, Salem, OR, USA
57 degrees, overcast
Walking back to my dorm from a long night of homework, my eyes looked out onto the shallow Mill stream. To my surprise there was a HUGE raccoon wading in the water. This raccoon, unlike the others I’ve seen around campus, was all alone and looked like he had a long journey ahead of him, if he was planning on walking all the way down the stream. As I watched him, I was wondering where he was planning on getting out to return to land because the edges of the stream seemed too high for the animal to crawl over. To my surprise however, the raccoon jumped onto the highest part of the ledge and pulled himself over. This was shocking to me because he looked like a big fat ball and I couldn’t figure out how he got the leg power to maneuver himself like that. Not only did he jump up and grab on to the land with his claws, but also pulled himself safely onto land. It looks like raccoons are stronger than I would have guessed, I hope I don’t run into this guy again alone at night!
photo courtesy: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Procyon_lotor_2.jpg/199px-Procyon_lotor_2.jpg
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