I'm choosing this week to Describe a memorable camping experience. Most of you know that I'm a huge fan of camping and grew up camping a lot. So I really could lay down a novel right here for you. But I won't.
The most memorable camping trip was probably about four or five years ago. It was in September, we went up to Left hand fork/Blacksmith whatever it's called near Hyrum. Dallas and I went with my parents and my brother and his girlfriend. We set up camp and unloaded the four wheelers and my brother was off with in minutes on his new Raptor. It was beautiful, the campground was vacant because it was the off season (which means free). Apparently we were the only ones who new that because all the way up and down the road people just camped off to the side.
I think it was the second day we were there, we had been riding all morning and my brother and his girlfriend had been gone on their four wheelers for quite awhile. I had mentioned how long they had been gone to my mom when my brother and his girlfriend rode up on one four wheeler. We automatically think that his brand new toy bit the dust already, but as he got off and came closer we could tell something was wrong. He immediately told us to call the cops because he had just been attacked by what we refer to now as the "hillbillies" and they had taken his four wheeler. Just then we see them racing down the road. My husband told me to jump into our truck to drive to cell service. So I left the drama behind. I drove down the washboard road so fast I literally shook the tail lights loose.
By the time I got back, my family was sitting at the table eating the dutch oven dinner that had been cooking and acted as if nothing had happened and I was nearly in tears. It turns out that the "hillbillies" had mistaken my brother for someone else who had driven past them earlier that day and flipped a rock and cracked their windshield on their truck (because the were camped on the side of the road). But when they realized that I had left to get the police they begged for forgiveness and took off to pack up their camp. After the police showed up and we gave a description, they found them hiding down the road a ways. Turns out hillbilly #1 was on parole and shouldn't have been where he was and doing what he was, i.e. drinking and shooting guns. He ended up going back to prison for 6 more years for violation charges.
I think the best part of the whole experience was seeing how protective our little family could be. My dad quickly got his gun, but kept his cool and left it holstered, because we had heard them shooting earlier and he didn't know what to expect. I saw my mom stand between my little brother, who at the time was about 22 years old and taller than her, and a rather big 40 something year old man. And I, truly realizing how important my family was to me as I was racing down that road for help not knowing what was happening to them and what I'd come back too.
All in all it was a great trip and an exciting story to tell. Oh, and my brother fared OK, just a few bumps and bruises. We were just grateful that he wears a helmet because three grown men were kicking him in the head and with out the helmet he surely would've been in much worse condition.
So I hope you enjoyed my first entry to writers workshop, although a writer I'm not. And if you can take anything from this story, always wear a helmet, because you never now when you'll run into a drunk hillbilly.
