I was on the phone with my parents when I heard a faint little squeaking noise and thought I saw the shadow of some small animal burrowing under the corner of our tent. Then I spotted the culprit—a brazen little mouse came scurrying up to our food, just inches away from me. To my surprise, he shamelessly hopped on top of a pancake and began feasting! It was cute. At first.

Over the next couple of days, we would be in a full-on war against the mouse we dubbed Howard. Howard would start chewing our bag of flour while I was making cookies. I would shoo him away and he would simply run to the bikes, waiting, lurking in their shadows. We would stare each other down like a pair of gunslingers, often for a few minutes at a time! When I turned my head back to cooking, he would be gone in a flash and I would find him right next to me, nibbling on anything from our dish-scrubber to the plastic carton of eggs.

We began taking "Howard-Safety Measures" and started to "Howard-Proof" our tent. Once we forgot and left the tent open just for a couple of minutes to go use the restroom. When we returned, Howard was in our tent, tentatively foraging for food in the "restricted area".

Tyler shooed him into the soft folds of my pants, grabbed the bundle, and carried it into the far-reaches of the campsite, banishing him from our territory with a firm warning about how he would end up if he returned.

We have since moved our tent (because of shade, not because of Howard) but we still think we hear him scurrying around. We even miss him, just a little bit.