Camping 101

I have never done anything too extreme in the wildlife from what I can remember. I think the most I did was camping in an RV with my family up in Wisconsin for a couple days. My mom’s side of the family lives up there and we used to go up there quite a bit when I was younger. I haven’t been in years and wouldn’t mind going back sometime, though preferably in the summer.

I could honestly drag this story out to be extremely long, probably a couple pages, but I won’t. I know the longer a page is, the less likely someone is to read about it. So I will try to explain all the seemingly important parts. The trip was supposed to last past tonight as well, but seeing how horribly it went, we didn’t make it past noon today.

Scott and I headed for Ocala National Forest around 2:00pm and after long driving and scouting for a campground, we found and settled in around 5:00pm. Ben, Rachel, and Katie were on their way and had left around 6:20. Scott had to drive to an area where we could get a phone signal, so he left me by myself. I had nothing but a cigarette lighter and two bundles of wood, so I started a fire.

It took him about an hour, but he finally came back. It was getting dark outside, and the other people were on their way. After a few minutes of sitting and talking, he went to go get food and the usual and I had to stay because we had to keep someone to watch over the fire.

He gets back with hotdogs and s’more making material. Long story short, he left again to get connection to service for his cell phone so he could contact Ben. No longer than two minutes after he left, I heard movement in the nearby bushes that led to the forest. Our campsite was located on the very end and next to acres and acres of forest. I am wrapped in a blanket on the left side of the bench, facing the fire and opposite to the trees.

No sooner had I heard the shrubbery moving off in the distance did I hear something come from behind me and to the right. I look over and since the only light I had was a small firelight, I was practically blind. I saw three small figures moving not but two feet from me. I freaked out and walked away from the fire and listened and barely made out three animals grab the hotdogs that Scott had bought and walk away with them into the trees. They happened to be raccoons.

I didn’t know raccoons were so terrifying, or maybe it was just me. I ended up walking about 50 feet to the nearby camper and asked him about the animals that roamed around. He was an interesting person. The man was from Quebec, Canada and had hitchhiked when he was 16 years old from Missouri to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Texas. He said he remembered a homosexual man tried to seduce him while he was hitchhiking in Tulsa, which I found interesting. He was a nice man and had a pretty cool accent. He was by himself and is headed back to Canada in April.

This isn’t going very fast, so I’ll have to skip a few events. The raccoons practically stayed near us the whole night, constantly sneaking up to our site only to be discovered by the flashlights that Ben, Rachel, and Katie brought. So there were five of us now, and we had more firewood to keep a decent sized fire. Theresa, Melyssa, and Carolina were on their way and had left around 8:30pm – 9:00pm to get here.

Hours pass and still no sign of them, and no service on our phones for us to talk to them. So, Scott and I head out to go get a signal to call and find them. We’re on the highway headed to another road that we were going to meet them. Several minutes passed and we couldn’t get ahold of them again, so we decided to head back. We were driving contently when out of nowhere, something hit against Scott’s windshield and completely cracked it everywhere, but not breaking it out of frame.

Being freaked out and not sure what to do, Scott keeps driving. I insist and finally convince him to pull over and we call the police. We describe what happened, suggesting it came out of the air and hit the windshield. It couldn’t have been a deer, though we passed about 20. We didn’t run over anything, there was no blood, no feathers, no skin/fur, no nothing. There were any dents or marks on the roof of the car nor on the hood. There was no trace of anything, just a big thud. The police were trying lessen the intensity of the situation or something, because he asked Scott if it were an alien.\

And if that wasn’t any better, we made it back to the camp, finally, and the girls still weren’t there. We gave up on them and sat around for a couple hours and decided to go to bed. It was 2:00am and we all fit into Ben and Scott’s car because it got down to 22 degrees. We all settled down and no sooner had we done that, Rachel’s phone goes off; it was Carolina. They are waiting at the intersection of two highways and want us to meet them.

Ben says he trusts me driving, so I get in the driver’s seat, turn on the car and put in in reverse. I’m going slowly backwards and he asks me if I know what is behind me. I nod in approval and no more than two seconds later, I hit something. It ended up being a water faucet and water was torrentially spewing out. Ben took over the driver’s seat and I started freaking out. We didn’t know what to do, so we headed to the front of the camp, looking for management and to find the girls.

We found them, we came back, I was stressing out, and I finally went to the bathroom after holding it a couple hours. To conclude, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it seemed, being the faucet. We just turned it on all the way with the car and broke off a small piece. The night ended, we finally got comfortable and slept until daylight. We got the faucet situation fixed, Scott’s windshield is going to be covered because of Florida Policy or something and we can leave everything there.

Overall, it was a dreadful night that I though wasn’t going to end. I had a very low point somewhere in there. Things happened, and when we didn’t think it could get worse, it did. Morning came around, we sat around for a little bit and I left with Ben, Rachel, and Katie. I was happy to leave and on the way I out said my farewells to the man that was from Quebec. We made it home, I showered, and my clothes that smell of smoke are in the washing machine.