Something to Write Home About

I remained still, lying in my sleeping bag as the sun peeked over the hills. My life was flashing before my eyes. I was too young to die!

I thought back to thirteen short hours ago. The sun was beginning to creep toward the edge of the sky, and the mosquitoes were beginning to feast. Kim and I trekked across the prairie toward our camp site through the waist-high grass, trying to be as cheerful as we could. Behind us, fourteen pre-teens ambled with the momentum of sleepwalking snails. The conversation was stimulating.

“Are we there yet? . . . This is boring . . . I’m tired of walking! . . . I’m hungry! . . . I miss my mom and dad.”

We made it to our campsite and set up the tarps. Then Kim began to explain the situation with the fire. She informed the campers that it would be difficult to light the nearby logs without kindling. She then politely suggested that since the counselors would be preparing the meals, the campers should go to find the wood. The campers looked like they were in no big hurry, so Kim pulled out her secret weapon.

“Whether or not you get s’mores tonight depends on two things. First, it depends on whether or not we can fix and eat the meals before bedtime. Second, it depends on whether or not we have enough wood to keep the fire going long enough. Now get going.”

I caught a few bits of conversation as the girls trudged off. “Why do we have to do this? It is so boring and stupid, and the food is going to be bad anyway. We should have just stayed back at camp.”

Within a few minutes, several girls came back with armloads of wood. They dropped the wood in a pile and then ran off to find more. Kim and I set to work building the fire. Being the expert wilderness women that we were, Kim and I had the fire going in less than ten minutes. We began to put together the dinners.

Suddenly we heard blood-curdling screams coming from a nearby hill. We looked up to see the girls racing down the hill at full throttle straight toward the campsite.

“Horses,” one of them panted, “on the hill . . . coming . . . this way . . . chasing . . . us.” Kim and I looked up. Sure enough, there were horses on the hill coming our way. However, they seemed to have given up the chase and were nonchalantly ambling down the hill.

As we calmed down the girls, Kim turned to me. “I sure hope those horses don’t make it to the campsite. There’s no telling what they’ll do to our stuff.”

I nodded in agreement. “But how do we chase them away?”

We need not have worried, however, because we suddenly heard barking. The camp dogs had followed us out to our campsite. They took off after the horses and chased them further up the pasture.

By this time the sun had begun to dip behind the hills. The girls had brought in enough wood to last us for days, so we decided not to send them out again. Instead, we all sang camp songs while the food cooked. Even through the loud singing, however, I could still hear the distant whinnies and snuffles of the horses.

Once the food was cooked, the girls reluctantly began to eat. However they soon quickly devoured all of the available food and were begging for s’mores. We gathered around the fire and made s’mores, talked, laughed a little, and told ghost stories until well after midnight when we decided it was time to send them to bed.

The girls climbed into their sleeping bags and soon dropped off to sleep. Kim and I stayed up for a little while discussing the day, but soon we fell asleep as well. I remember thinking just before I fell asleep that we forgot to fix the trash to prevent raccoons from getting into it.

I slept fitfully that night. I kept dreaming about horses. In my dreams, their neighing, snuffling, stamping, and swishing sounded so real

I awoke with a start early the next morning. Something was breathing on my face. Its breath was terrible!

I opened my eyes and found myself staring into two giant nostrils. My life flashed before my eyes briefly, and then I quickly regained control of myself. I reached up slowly and began to stroke the velvet nose. The beast began to back up, and I soon recognized Rosebud, the horse I rode for every trail ride.

I slowly stood up. I clicked my tongue and she followed me off the tarp. I firmly commanded, “Stay there,” and turned around. It was then that I noticed that there were eight other horses scattered about the tarps chewing on water bottles and gnawing on sleeping bag zippers. A few were even trying to eat the tarps.

By this time some of the campers were beginning to stir. I quickly woke up Kim, and we began to push the horses off the tarps. As the girls woke up, we told them to be still for awhile so they would not spook the horses and get stepped on.

Soon there were two horses left. These two were the lead horses for the trail ride, and I am certain they were the leaders that morning as well. We tried everything we could think of. We pushed. We prodded. We even tried bribery, but to no avail. They ignored us and continued to chew up the tarp.

Kim and I discussed our next course of action. We knew we were not going to be able to move the two horses. We also knew that there was less than an hour until flag-raising, and we had to pack everything up, hike back to camp and get ready for the day. We decided we were just going to have to leave the tarps there and come back later.

We told the girls to get up and start packing up their stuff. I walked over to the fire pit and grabbed the water jug. I poured water over the fire pit. Then I reached for the trash bag. What I found confused me.

The bag had been nearly full the night before, but was now almost empty. The few crumpled balls of foil that were left were scattered about. The bag was torn to shreds. The horses had eaten the trash!

I gathered what little was left, and we started our trek back to camp. I could hear the girls’ muted giggles and plans to tell everyone in camp. I smiled to myself as I heard one camper quote a popular camp skit: “Now I have something to write home about . . . .”