Roo's Place-Was not expecting what had happened

I have only camped at Roo's Place once by myself with my dog Roo.  Many times I have gone up and stayed there by myself for most of the day until Jon would show up a little after dark.  He would come up after doing patrol.  Or leave very early on Saturday morning and be back early evening.  When friends come I would be there before they get there or they would follow me up.  Once time my daughter and son-n-law spent hours trying to find Roo's Place.  We ended up having Jon get in the car and look for them on the forest road.  It is not an easy place to find.  Which is why we love the place.  I have always had someone sleeping in the tent with me and Roo.  Until this weekend.

Jon was not able to go camping with me and so I invited my friend Jonathan to come.  He had been wanting to go now for quite a while.  There are many people who would like to go but I have limited it to certain friends and family.  We don't want the place to get loved to death and the group may quit coming because of the people.  Plus I only want people who would NOT come across as a threat to them.  We do not allow weapons or electronics at Roo's Place.  We have bear mace for the bears and we have our camera.  So far the group seems to accept who we have brought with us and seemed curious.  They seemed to be more active when it is mainly women but we still have some interesting things happen when the guys are there.  Usually not as much or as intense but things do happen.

Jonathan has never seen eye shine.  Well, that had changed when he was at Roo's Place.  Which I was not expecting.  We usually get limited eye shine there and mainly later in the summer after we have been there several times.  This was only the second time camping there this summer.  Before it got dark I oriented him to where the horizon was and where the rocky outcroppings were located.  I also showed him where they usually come up to watch us.  This weekend reminded me strongly of the weekend Harriett and her husband Dick came a few years ago and he had his "Ah, Ha" moment.  Dick was a total non-believer until that night when he saw 2 sets of eye shine about 10 1/2 feet from him when he looked out of the camper.  He had many questions  and was trying to wrap his mind around what he had seen.  This also happened to Jonathan.  He knew about eye shine but was neutral about it.  Jonathan had to wrap his mind around what he had seen and analyze it.  He now knows what eye shine looks like.  LOL  That night, Jonathan had seen eye shine several times and at different spots around us.  One time he saw the red eye shine right in front of him moving to our right into the thicker part of the trees.  I had seen it moments after he had.  When we walked up to the forest road we had some very bright white eye shine watching us from the tree line across the forest road.  In the past Jon and I have seen some there.  This time it was very bright and much closer.  Then we had seen the red eye shine several times after that when we were sitting around the camp fire ring with our light posing as the campfire.  We were not able to have a campfire because of the fire ban.

Jonathan had pitched his tent about 10 feet from mine.  I had brought my small tent for Roo and I. I had mentioned earlier that I have always had another person in the tent with me except for one camping trip several years ago.  Did not think too much about this since Jonathan would be in his tent 10 feet away.  I would like to make a side note that for many years I have been known for not wanting to be touched when out camping.  LOL  It was a standing joke with several friends about this.  I usually camp in a big tent and sleep as close to the middle of the tent as possible.  Not that this had made any differences about being touched.  😟   Over the years, I have been touched 2 times with a possible 3rd time.  You can read about them in my earlier posts in this blog.  I have relaxed this stance but I am still not real keen on the whole touching thing.  Much to my nerves' dismay.  LOL

During the day we did explore the area and I showed him several of the structures, glyphs and where the marbles were found.  I also showed him across the ravine to where I had found prints and where we heard the rhymic knocking that was heard that first night camping there.  I have found that if you do some exploring in the area and make your presence known, we tend to have more stuff happen at night.  I was on record to not expect much and reminded Jonathan not to expect anything.  Then we had the great eye shine that night but then I was only expecting them come up to the tents, nothing else.  Which is normal there at Roo's Place.  

Well...

We did hear them come up to the tents.  They seemed to walk very closely around Jonathan's tent and I heard them do this a couple of times.  They did come to my tent but that is normal for Roo's Place.  What they did twice is what I was not expecting.  Also Roo did something she hasn't done there in a long time.  She did single short frantic barks twice.  Both times before something happened to me.  

You see a couple of minutes after she did the first single frantic bark I was in the process of turning from my right side to my left side.  As I was turning, it felt like something either grabbed the top of my right foot or touched real hard.  I did a small "Oh!" and just laid there trying to figure out what had happened.  I am positive something either grabbed or touched real hard when I moved.  I then moved closer to the middle of the small tent.  Jonathan said he heard me when I asked him if he heard me make any noises.  Only one time he said.  The second single frantic bark Roo did was a little later.  I was laying on my left side with my back to the tent wall.  SOMETHING POKED MY RIGHT SHOULDER!  I know that feeling because this had happened to me a few years ago at Central Colorado with another Investigator named Tony.  This is also in one of my earlier post on this blog.  I then proceeded to move Roo over and made sure I was in the middle of the tent.  Some how I went to sleep.  LOL

If you look at the picture above with the tents, the yellow one to the left is mine.  It has a rainfly.  I was perplexed about how either touch could have happened.  Especially the shoulder touch.  So I recreated the scene to see how this could have happened or if it was my imagination but I know I was touched!  I put my mattress with my sleeping bag back in place and then checked it out.  There is no doubt about the shoulder touch.  It had touched me even though there is the rainfly.  Where I was positioned it was possible.  Now the foot incident was a bit discerning to me.  I suspect it tried to grabbed my foot by reaching in under the rainfly.  I did not realize where my feet was positioned  it was right under the edge of the rainfly.  Very easy for it to happened and feasible.

To me this was a game changer here at Roo's Place.  This physical touching is a new dimension and makes me a bit nervous.  I was not expecting this and not sure how I feel.  The one thing I did realize as I was driving home from Roo's Place was that even though I had a friend there, I was alone in the tent with just Roo.  What does this mean?

I have had many weird and scary moments in my journey of discovery.  Many questions and some heart felt moments.  So where does this journey go in regards to Roo's Place?  The one thing I do know-I will continue to go to Roo's Place.  I am ready to go to the next level.  Whatever that means.

So my friends-

SQUATCH ON!