I just woke up from taking a nap after spending the night with the Boy Scouts on an "overnighter."
The word overnighter has a survival tone to it--and if I analyze the adventure, I'd say it fits. I left straight from work at around 5:30 PM and drove to the camp location about 30 minutes away in the Wasatch Mountains. We camped on some private cabin property, which was nice. The fire was already going when I arrived. The Scouts already exploring their new environment.
The other two adult leaders were getting out the evening meal: hot dogs, chips, cookies, and punch. I slid a hot dog on a roasting stick and watched the skin bubble and brown. I placed it in a bun, threw on some mustard, and savored the flavor. I ate two dogs and a handful of chips and chased it down with bottled water. Later, the Scouts roasted some marshmallows and placed them in between a couple of chocolate covered cookies for a treat. I stuffed a cold marshmallow in my mouth, bit off a piece of cookie, leaned back in my camp chair and glanced up at the darkening sky with the thought that dessert was served.
The fire was warm. I could feel the heat as it glanced off my face and toasted my clothes. We talked about the weather and how cold we figured it would get. We decided it would be in the high 30s by morning. Dark clouds were bunching up against a bright moon casting an erie back-glow to the surrounding trees. The Scouts had gathered around, eaten their quick dinner, and waiting for a few spooky stories. I started with a couple of old classics I like to tell. In my day, they were the kind of stories that kept us young Scouts in our tents at night. I've discovered that they are not as scary to today's Scouts. I guess with the things they see in the media, and on electronic games, a story about an old wide-brimmed hat wearing sheepherder's ghost still wandering the very hills where we were camped in, and seen just last week, isn't all that frightening to them. I had to resort to secretly tossing a few large rocks out into the trees to get a few of the Scouts wondering what lurked in the darkness and getting their adrenaline and imaginations stirred.
You can learn a lot from just sitting around a campfire at night and just listening. I learned a little more about the young men as they told their own stories and interacted with each other.
We were going to break camp early as some of the Scouts needed to be back to get to ball games and other activities. All of us were in bed by 11:00 PM. After laying in my tent listening to the noises of the forest and trying to figure out what the repeated sound of footsteps approaching my tent and then stopping could be, I finally fell asleep. I don't think I was a sleep long when I hear a loud distressed yell of a man. At first, I thought I was dreaming, but as my heart pumped I heard the yell again: "Help!" I sat up and waited for the yell again. "Help!" The voice was now closer. I grabbed my pants and prepared to put them on. The voice was down near the paved road and I heard it yell again. This time it yelled a name, "Adam!" This person was definitely in some distress. Just as I was trying to get my legs into my pants, I heard a car pull up, stop for a second, and then drive off. The yelling stopped. I lay there assuming that the person in distress had found his ride to safety. Still, I lay there and tried to figure out what could possibly been the person's problem.
As I thought about the different situations a person could be caught in, the sky flashed with lightning and a roar of thunder bounced off the canyon. Then a slight drizzle started to tap the rain-fly on my tent. Another bright flash and boom was heard and the rain began to fall more seriously. It was an isolated shower and lasted about fifteen minutes. Slowly, I began to fall asleep--then the wind started up. First, it shook the rain off the tent and splashed it on the groundcloth periodically. Each time I closed my eyes and wished for sleep, the wind would rush through the trees, shake the tent, and startle me awake. I layed there thinking about a wide-brimmed hat wearing sheepherder ghost who kept walking up to my tent.
I don't remember falling asleep, but I must have for a couple of hours. The next thing I heard was the birds chirping. I figured it was about 5:00 AM. I rolled over, realized the air in the headrest of my air mattress had leaked out and tried to squeeze one more hour of sleep out of a very sleepless night. Too many birds chirping. It was no use, I layed there waiting to hear the noise of the others raising from what I assumed was a peaceful nights rest for them.
When I climbed out of the sack, and emerged from my tent, a fire was going and two Scouts and one adult Leader were warming themselves. Soon others joined us. I asked if they had heard the guy yelling and everyone did. We talked about what his problem might have been. Someone suggested he was drunk or high on drugs. That seemed like a possible scenario.
We then ate some breakfast and started to break camp. A very light snow began to fall. By 8:00 AM we were on the road to civilization. We had survived the "overnighter!"
