14. Not As Safe As It Seems
When I was a kid, around eight or nine, my Mom, Grandma, brothers and I went camping at a small camping site about two hours from the town we lived in. We went there a lot and even had a particular campsite we had slowly built up over the years. On this particular trip, we had my Aunt and Uncle’s dogs with us since they were doing military tours.
They were both well-trained bird dogs, but usually really calm and friendly. The first night on this particular trip, Star starts growling in the tent at about 1 in the morning. My Mom, thinking something is outside, arms herself and investigates with the dogs. As she gets out of the tent, Star and Ariel would absolutely not let her move to the other edge of the campsite.
They both get into attack position while herding my Mom towards the car. This is while also keeping themselves in front of the tent. By this point, we are all up with a group of kids under 10 freaking out. For a reason she can’t even explain today, my Mother packs up camp and gets us all into the car to head home. We thought we were safe—but we weren’t.
After about ten minutes out of the campsite, a car starts following us and the dogs get in the back and just growl. By this point, everyone was in borderline panic mode and my brothers were crying the entire car ride home. As the town comes into view, you have to cross a huge bridge to drive in. The car was still following us.
As a kid, you make up stories to tell yourself that nothing is wrong and the car behind you is just full of scared people, too. Yet as we start across the bridge, the car stops and just turns around, speeding back the way we came. We stopped at a gas station and everyone was in near meltdown mode. Camping is no longer my thing.