Hey guys! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! My weekend was such an amazing one. Saturday featured a much too hot and oven like afternoon so it was decided that it was time to head up to Northern Arizona. In fact, come to think of it I don’t think I’ve ever packed so fast! My friend’s truck was loaded and we were off!

It didn’t take too long to get to our usual camping area and along the way we immediately saw some wild horses enjoying a drink in the Salt River. There were about 4 or 5 of them but that was a sure sign of all of the luck that was coming our way.

At our campsite we set up the tent, laid out the sleeping bags, and cracked open a cold one. Since there was a current ban on campfires we had to make do with little head lights and flashlights. it was perfect and eventually after dinner we just turned them off and let the moonlight light our way.

About halfway through the night we noticed that the light was ceasing and peered up into the sky to see that heavy rain clouds were making their way over to us. The lightning storm lasted a solid 45 minutes before the thunder rolled in. It was then we decided to take the truck back to the main road incase the rain flooded the little dirt road leading to our campsite. On our walk back to the site it started to rain. Something about walking in a forest at night while the rain sprinkles down felt absolutely exhilarating!

Everything was smooth sailing as we drank some more and played cards in the drizzle until the big “BOOM!” A lightning struck cracked the sky and was suddenly followed by a sharp and much too loud roll of thunder. It was so strong that it shook the ground! Next thing I know my chair is thrown back, my heart is rapidly pounding, I seem to have only been able to hear myself breathing heavily, and I was running through the forest for dear life! In my wake of panic I forgot to grab my flashlight much less anything else and booked it out of dodge. I couldn’t hear my friend calling out after me and by the time I stopped running and assessed what my situation was I realized I had some playing cards in my hand being crumpled by my death grip. I calmed down and gave myself a little chuckle and thought, “Seriously? Playing cards? No flashlight? That’s not ideal to have when running for your life in the woods!” Luckily, my heart rate calmed and my ears weren’t filled with pressure anymore and I could hear my friend calling me to come back. Since I didn’t run off from the road I was able to easily follow it back.

My friend was looking at me with eyes wide and asked what the heck just happened?! I told him I wasn’t good with thunder and being with very minimal shelter my nerves must have gotten the best of me. He said if I was in a Horror themed video game I would most likely be the first to die lol. I agreed and we sat back down and continued on with our evening talking about anything and everything. From old 90’s shows we used to watch on Nickelodeon and Eyelash Mites. He didn’t enjoy the mite convo so much but I enjoyed watching him squirm uncomfortably for a bit lol.

At roughly 4:30AM I was woken up by a strange and loud sound. My eyes popped open and I thought “oh no, not again” but it wasn’t thunder this time. I sat up silently waiting to hear the sound again to better assess what it may be I shook my friend’s arm and told him I heard something. Now, he’s not the type to jump up and find out what’s going on so he just mumbled something and rolled over. I happily shook the dickens out of his arm again and told him to listen. We heard it again but it was closer to our tent this time. Since we had put the rainfly on top of the tent incase it were to rain again we couldn’t peek out and see what it was. so the following checklist was made:

1. No heavy footsteps

2. There was more than 1

3. We had never heard that sound before

4. It didn’t sound threatening

5. Must be scavenging

I quietly unzipped the window and tried to see if it was crossing infront of our tent but no there was one right behind us, to the left of us, and we heard another one in the distance on the other side of the road. By this time the birds were singing and for about a solid 20 minutes neither one of us moved. I had the airhorn at the foot of the tent but I didn’t want to sound it off because I wanted to determine what had stumbled upon us. My friend laid back down and dozed off to sleep but got a gentle shake every time he snored.

A little while later the Sun had come up enough to light up our area and I saw a Deer walked by, then another one, then another one with a baby, and then a couple more. It was a group of 9 White-tailed Deer and they too had stumbled across our campsite. The paused every step or so listening for threats and my heart had just been turned into goo. They were SO cute and SO close!! I wanted to grab my phone but I was too afraid I would spook them so I just sat quietly and patiently watching them as they grazed then finally passed. They were walking towards the loud weird grunting we heard earlier so I assessed that whatever we had heard couldn’t be that dangerous if Deer were heading towards it.

As I shifted to the back of the tent I climbed over my friend and peeked out the window. There was a little gap between the rainfly and I immediately saw the culprit. It was a TURKEY! A Wild (very loud) Turkey!! Then I saw another one and it was all white! Then another, it was multicolored but not as big as the first bird I saw. I smiled to myself and giggled that I had mistook a turkey for being some Forest witch lol. It was an amazing sight and experience all around.

Once all of the animals had passed by we took a nice long nature walk and made it to a ridge where we watched the sunrise. On the drive home we ventured around some more and saw a lot more animals. Some wild, some not so much, but altogether amazing!