Posted on 08/19/2016 4:52:44 PM PDT by West Texas Chuck
Was camping with family and a friend of mine at DeWeese Reservoir in Colorado many years ago, a beautiful quiet night. My pal and I are on the bank with fishing poles, enjoying the night. Suddenly a bolt of lightning out of nowhere hits the middle of the lake and fragments into runners going every direction across the water. And a LOUD booming thunder. We dove into the dirt and then ran for the camper screaming. My Dad said “Where’d it hit?” I yelled “The whole damn lake!!”
Broke camp in the middle of this and skedaddled.
Camping on Toledo Bend when I was about 23 or so, we had a tent my parents made from 2 army pup tens, with mosquito netting that hung down the sides, side would also roll down for cold weather.
It was cold weather. Tent closed up, old red single mantle Coleman lantern going for light, somehow it caught on fire inside the tent. I destroyed a sleeping bag trying to put it out, my father finally threw it outside on the ground and got it put out.
Another trip we went out fishing on the lake, sudden storm rolled in. About a mile from camp, started the outboard and headed that way. got just in sight of camp and the weather hit us, storming like crazy, I could see my mother on the bank waving and screaming. Couldn’t hear of course. Serious waves, pouring rain, lots of wind...
We got back without mishaps, my mother told us when the boat went down into the troughs of the waves it would go completely out of sight. This was a 16’ Glastron V bottom made in the early 60’s, pretty deep one.
About age 15 we went to a lake in central Lousiana and my father and I decided we would float along and hunt squirrels just off the bank. Just enough breeze to float the boat along, all he had to do was steer now and then with the paddle. We had 2 shotguns, a paddle and 2 life jackets, that’s it. I floated into a briar path, we got out of it, floated along some more.
A few minutes later I thought I had floated into another, reached up to pull the briar vine off my neck, nothing there. Turned and looked, we weren’t looking and floated into a red wasp nest bigger than a dinner plate. Over a foot in diameter and they were MAD...I started paddling with my shotgun...
Got back to the bank...never had the presence of mind to just jump in the water...got back to camp and started counting. I stopped counting at 56 wasp stings. Face, arms, legs, back, chest, the damn things went all the way up my pants legs to my knees.
Sick the next day but made it through OK and had no serious problems. No I don’t hate wasps, they’re just a nuisance I have to deal with, I get stung a couple of times every summer. Doesn’t bother me much after that though...
Then there were any of a half dozen times I almost stepped on water moccasins...or copperheads...I do hate those little bastards...
Oops first line should be I was about 12 or so. Not 23, typo...
Oh, good question, WTC. When I was a kid, my mother had 5 of us within 6 years, then my dad left. So we grew up with a single mother. She tried to give us many experiences, including camping. We just had a small tent and a station wagon. I was maybe 8 or 9 years old, so 1965? We were camping in Geode State Park in eastern IA. The night was very stormy, ended up with tornado warnings and torrential rains. Of course, there were no electronics in those days. We ended up pulling up camp in the pouring rain, and she drove us into a little town, for which the road going out was flooded. We spent the rest of the night in the only building open in the town, which was a 24 hour self-service laundromat. The place was very hot, and full of flies, and the smell of bug spray everywhere. She put us up on the long sorting tables to try to get some sleep. It all ended well, but was pretty scary and chaotic for a few hours. Certainly memorable.
You mean like the time I went boating and took all my guns and ammo? The splash when that boat overturned was scary!
One time i heard this weird devil sounding screech. Someone told me later that it might have been young coyotes?
Frightening stories. Thanks. I feel like a wimp now.
My two brothers and I were camping in Trinity Forest in Northern California. After dinners, whiskey and a camp fire, we slept in sleeping bags on pads on the tall grass in the open field. 200 AM a team of huge deer with antlers strolled through our field and munched on grass about five feet from us. We were petrified and they walked away after 20 minutes.
I feel your pain brah!
Dammit! I hate it when that happens.
We arrived late one evening at a small island in a large lake to camp and barely had time to pitch our tent and make dinner before it was pitch black. A friend and I crawled into our little pup tent in the dark. Then I heard him run his fingers (I thought) across the roof of the tent. We both said, at the same time "why did you do that?"
About then, we heard numerous rattling across the tent roof. We grabbed a flashlight and shined it out the tent. All we saw were millions of beady red eyes staring back at the light.
The whole island was completely inundated by mice. Everywhere we shined the light, all we saw were beady red eyes. We spent a fitful night with the scurrying over the tent roof continuing like a hail storm. In the morning we found that the contents of every pack that wasn't completely sealed was totally destroyed by the mice. We just threw everything in the canoes and got out of there as fast as we could move.
My roommate, his girlfriend and I went camping in the Sierras in June when the temperature was in the nineties. We were not prepared for cold weather. They only had a light tent and I actually was sleeping outside in a sleeping bag.
In the middle of the night a strong wind from a cold front came in. I thought I was going to freeze to death. I ended up in their tent and we all tried to keep each other warm and to keep the tent from blowing away. The temperature must have dropped below freezing, because the next morning there was an ice skim on the puddles of water near our campsite.
Tent camping on a hilltop among tall trees. Woke in the middle of the night with serious cloud to ground lightning and a heavy downpour. Nothing to do but sit (or lay there, LOL) there and wait for it.......
Camping with at least two friends who are as heavily armed as yourself is the best way to camp for many reasons. good stories on this thread. Im Glad you posted this thread.
First time camping in the Rocky Mountains...Beartooth Mountains to be exact...My buddy and his wife were sleeping on a mattress in the back of his truck which had a topper on it...My wife and I were sleeping in a tent a few feet away...
Sometime during the night I was woken up by loud noises outside the tent and all of a sudden, whatever it was, was clearly trying to get in our tent...We were doomed...
I started frantically screaming at my buddy to wake up, hoping he would before we got ate alive...He had a gun with him in the truck...I can then see his flashlight thru the tent...The ruckus stopped and my buddy started laughing hysterically...I shouted, ‘what, what’??? After he calmed down he said, ‘that was the biggest skunk I’d ever seen’...
(Kind of after the fact)
Another time we went camping out by Quake Lake just west of Yellowstone Park (we’re from Michigan)...We set up in the middle of the woods...Campfire and all...Pretty uneventful night...
Next morning a BLM officer pulled into our campsite as we were drinking coffee...He looks around and says, ‘somebody sleep in that tent last night’??? I said, ‘ya, me and my wife’....
He then looks me in the eye and says, ‘you got to be nuts’...’This particular square mile has a concentration of more grizzly bears than any other square mile in the United States’...’I’m surprised you’re still alive’...I think that was the last night for tent camping in the Rockies...I still tremble a little bit when I think about it...
You’re a great story teller, fellow Texan! Very descriptive.
Raton, N.M.. The food was terrible and the indoor pool was out of order.
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