Sometimes, you can put all kinds of time and effort into planning trips, but when it comes time to executing the plan, things don’t always run according to plan. Sometimes, we have to go along with what feels right and improvise. Though my kids lived this story and they sometimes hear me retell it, I’m writing it down for the long term, so that they always remember…sometimes you have to listen to and trust your gut.
It was our family summer road trip in 2017. We were headed from Michigan to Arizona and back, in a two week time frame. Our route was carefully planned out in order to see some key sites and check some states off of the 50 states goal for the kids.
We were on day 3 of our annual adventure. We had just stayed 2 nights near Branson, MO. We got off to an early start that morning in order to travel an hour and a half, down to the Ranger boat factory in Flipping, AK for the first tour of the day. From there we had a seven hour drive to our next destination for the night. Of course we stopped for food, sites and refueling along the way, so we didn’t roll into our campground until right as the sun was going down.
As we pulled in, a young man was just locking up the office and heading home for the night. He took the time to greet us, give us a map and said “It’s pretty empty, so just pick out whatever spot you’d like”. Then he jumped in his car and drove away.
There was quite a decent downhill to reach the campsites and as the campground came into view under the quickly disappearing light of dusk, it was quickly becoming confusingly apparent that it wasn’t “pretty empty”…it was completely vacant. We drove by a pool…it was drained with a sign that said “closed for the season”. There was what looked like a host site camper set up, but it didn’t appear that anyone was occupying it.
We continued to drive looking for signs of people…anyone. It was the middle of summer…where was everyone?!? People said we were crazy doing a road trip to the Southwest in the middle of summer. But I didn’t expect that we were the only crazy ones. This was a beautiful state park…where were the people?
We drove every loop of the campground and FINALLY, we found one campsite occupied. At this point my husband and I both were feeling rather uneasy. It was also completely dark by this time. But we were exhausted, especially my husband, who had done all the driving. I felt like we were falling into a script of a scary movie. But he said, “Let’s just back in, a couple sites down from these other people. We’ll leave the camper hooked to the truck and just get a few hours sleep.”
I reluctantly agreed, I surely couldn’t ask him to keep driving any further, especially in the dark and already overtired. So, I hopped out of the truck with a flashlight to help light and guide his parking. And just then, we all heard the screaming of motorcycles, not the Harley type…and lots of them…and they were getting louder, meaning they were getting closer. Then we saw their headlights approach and got a glimpse of them through the trees, racing by in a big pack on the main inlet road. Then they disappeared from sight.
At this point, I’m standing at the side of the truck looking at my husband with such unease, like “seriously, could this get any more creepy? But lets get this thing parked, you get some sleep (there’s no way, I’ll be able to) and get the heck out of here way early in the morning”.
Then, the sounds of the motorcycles got louder again, but this time, the sounds were spread and then we saw the headlights…split…coming down each and every loop and road of the park. One coming straight towards us. And here I stood outside, in the dark with a flashlight like a target. I was terrified. What the heck was going on? Are they scoping things out? And they obviously can see we are loners down here with a truck and a camper full of belonging in this isolated location.
And as that bike approached us, he came into the truck’s headlights. I could clearly see his face and his eyes. And that was it. What I saw gave me full clarity, I didn’t care where we had to go, or how far we had to drive, we were absolutely not going to be there if and when they came back.
I jumped into the truck and told my husband with fire in my eyes to drive. Get us out of this place NOW. At this point, he felt it as well. And he drove.
Although I offered to drive, he drove. Drove several more hours to Amarillo, TX. Where we pulled into a Walmart parking lot at 2am, crawled into the camper and slept till 7.
Who knows how the night would have played out had we stayed. Everything could have been an over reaction. It could have been a stack up of unusually circumstances. But I didn’t need to find out. I didn’t need to test my gut, I needed to trust it.
Have you ever found yourself in a trust your gut situation while traveling? Please comment to share your story below.