Mississippi River Trip: Encounter II

I was right at the edge of sleep, that magical place where the thoughts racing through your head descend into a mixed half waking, half dreaming jumble.  I felt a sharp poke that jerked me into consciousness.

“Yeah baby?”

“There’s something out there.  It sounded like footsteps.”

We were camping in Medicine Bow National Forest, an area that talked of moose, bear, and deer as the large critters wandering the park, though the ranger had stressed that there had been no sightings of moose or bear this year.  I sat up.  The wind was strong that night, and a gust blew as I grabbed the bear spray and flashlight.

“There it is again!”

“What?”

“Footsteps!”

I shined the light around a bit, but in the back of my mind I already knew what it was.  The tent we have has a rain fly that inexplicably leaves a couple of areas unsecured and flapping, not matter how well you tie it down.   The “footsteps” were actually the sound of a flapping section rubbing against the rest of the fly.  To Larisa’s credit, it sounds exactly like footsteps on gravel if you have a really active imagination and try really hard to scare yourself.

“Go back to sleep, I’ll keep watch for a little bit.”

Larisa rolled over and after a few minutes I heard the steady breathing that told me she was in dreamland.  My “watch” lasted all of 6 minutes, and I joined her in sleep, dreaming of footsteps around the tent.