They're Coming to Take Me Away!

Last summer, Kirsten and I drove across the country. She needed to get her car home, I love driving across the country, and we'd done it once before, so we knew we were great driving buddies.

Our first overnight stop was planned for somewhere near Flagstaff, AZ, but the forecast there was calling for heavy snow. Yes, snow. In May. We thought about detouring south, but the rest of Arizona was scheduled for severe thunderstorms, so we chatted with a guide at the visitors' center and settled on a campsite right by a town called Williams that was close to Flagstaff, but at a lower elevation.

The campsite at Williams was lovely. We set up our tent right across from a huge lake, then spent some time exploring said lake and enjoying the scenery. I happened to notice that everyone else at the campsite had decided on an RV for their camping experience, but I figured our rain cover and cozy sleeping bags would protect us from any snow [almost] just as well.

Soon, the sun began to set, and since I'm not much for reading by flashlight, I snuggled into my sleeping bag and fell asleep.

A couple hours later, I began dreaming that the military was out to get me for some reason. I ran and I ran, but they were shooting at me from all directions. My dream startled me awake, and I was welcomed to reality with an enormous booming sound, just the noise I would imagine a legion of tanks might make as it makes its way through the woods.

Though I soon got over my fear that the army was out to get me personally, I was convinced that all the noise was indeed a covert military operation through the woods of Williams, Arizona. I just knew that there was a tank brigade making its way through our campground. But then I panicked all over again. The tanks may not have had specific orders to hunt me down and kill me, but Kirsten and I were the only ones at the campground who were not in an RV; there was no way the tanks would see our dinky little tent, and we were sure to be crushed by their covert advance!

Soon, as a few minutes passed and I remained 3-dimensional, I calmed down and decided that I was just being silly. There was no secret military mission through the woods of Williams, Arizona. The noise had not stopped, though, and there had to be some explanation for the cacophony. Instead of a military maneuver, I then decided that the noise was caused by a number of trucks and helicopters swarming the campground. Of course, that explanation needed an explanation, so I decided that there must be a serial rapist-killer on the loose (perhaps one who had just escaped from custody). Again, I panicked. Kirsten and I were two little girls in a tent whose walls could easily be breached with a simple steak knife. And of course, no one would hear our screams because they were all holed up in their big RVs!

Eventually, my fatigue took over and I was able to fall asleep. Thankfully, I woke in the morning to find our tent un-slashed, uncrushed, and Kirsten and me as chaste and pure as the night before. Upon leaving the campground, Kirsten pointed out a set of train tracks that couldn't have been more than a couple hundred yards from where we had slept. Turns out there had never been any secret military operation, nor a frantic search mission, only a routine railroad run. Funny, I would have never guessed trains could be that loud.