When I was younger, one of my favorite activities was going camping and boating. It was a great way to enjoy the outdoors and spend time with my family. For many summers, my family and I would load our camper and boat up and would go camping at Tongue River Reservoir, until one very strange event broke that tradition.
This experience happened when I was nine years old, and this year will actually be the ten year anniversary from when this event happened.
The whole camping part was great. We went boating, ate s'mores, and had an amazing time. When it was time to leave we packed everything up, my father made sure everything was secure, and then we went on our merry way home.
To paint a picture for you, we were in our father's truck, attached to the truck was our camper, and then attached to the camper was our boat, so it was a very heavy load to be driving, but we had done it many times before and my father is a very safe driver.
It was a great drive for the first hour and a half. I remember listening to music on my ipod nano and enjoying the beautiful scenery.
All of a sudden, this man in one of those traveling type trucks honks at us and motions for my father to pull over. My father, with much concern and suspicion, pulls over and so does the man. My family and I are concerned at this point because we don't know what this man wants from us. The man walks up to our car and my father rolls down the window.
No, the man doesn't try to rob us or pick a fight with my farther, what he says is actually kind of a plot twist and let me say a very unexpected one.
The man says to my father, "Uh yeah sir your boat just fell off of your truck about half a mile back and it rolled down into that field back there."
My father and the man walk over to the field and sure enough the boat is there, and along with our boat is a fire that the boat started.
I only remember a little bit after that. I remember my parents being very stressed out, saying certain words a nine year old wouldn't be allowed to say. I also remember my mother's friend coming to pick my sister and I up and drive us back to our hometown. She bought us McDonalds so needless to say, it was a great day for us! Not so much for my parents and the boat.
The boat actually survived the fire, and occasionally we take it to a lake, but since that event we've never attached the boat and camper to the same car.
This, along with many other stories i'll will probably share here at some point, is one of the weirdest but also funniest experiences to have happened to me, and it makes for a great conversation starter at a social gathering.
I really want to thank that man for having us pull over and informing us about the boat, because imagine what would have happened if we had gotten all the way home and our boat was gone! It would've turned into a very strange "where's the boat?" mystery.
