Night Visitors

Even when I failed to listen to my intuition, ignored the small voice that said just move on, it wasn’t assault that waited. When I reached the Missouri River and Ponca State Park, it was 8:30 pm and already dusk. I drove around the campground looking for a site that wasn’t reserved, that was flat enough, and cursed myself for my indecision. I parked and opened my car door; the humidity hit me like a wall. I walked to the “iron ranger” and danced around the concrete slab, evading mosquitoes while I wrote out a check to Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

I pitched my tent, slapping mosquitoes away from my ankles and neck, sweltering under a long sleeved shirt and long pants. I brought my sleeping pad, sleeping bag liner and road atlas from the car, briefly considered cooking dinner, thought better of it, and crawled in my tent to plan the next day’s route.

Earlier that morning I had first heard about Bonnie and Clyde, an escaped convict and his female accomplice who were thought to be on a caper by Yellowstone. Though I was nearly a thousand miles away, the possibility of encountering someone wishing me harm still echoed in my head.

Headlights swept my tent and I tensed. Three teens got out of their cars and dove back in ransacking their back seats for bug spray before starting to rehash their days and relationships. They weren’t causing any more trouble than talking in a speaking voice twenty feet away from my tent. I wanted to tell them they could stay as long as they liked but would they please whisper? But that would have involved wading through the mosquitoes. So I got out my headlamp and shone it at them through the mesh of my tent. It had the unintended effect of sending them scampering to their cars and speeding off.

I turned over and began to slow my mind and breath. Headlights swept my tent. I was alert instantly, and didn’t relax until I heard the voices of a woman and two children. They were there, it seemed, to find some cool nocturnal critter in the river. They had flashlights and kept exclaiming “Oh! There’s one. Do you see it? There!” I was torn between wanting to see what was so exciting and wanting them to go away so I could sleep. It was now after ten pm and I had been up since five.

At 3:00 the first thunderstorm came through. It was intense enough that I wondered if I should take refuge in my car. Instead I curled completely onto my three-quarter length insulated pad and tried to go back to sleep. More thunderstorms played across the floodplain dropping pebbles of rain. Lightening illuminated the side of my tent.

At 4:30 the deluge began and set me wondering about how flashy the Missouri River was. Not flashy, I reasoned with myself. Even as high as the river was, it would take an incredible volume of water to raise it even to bank full, and I planned, if the rain allowed, to be gone in an hour. I gave up on sleep and turned on my headlamp to write.

The rain let up about a half hour later and I scrambled to stuff my sleeping bag liner in its sac and roll my sleeping pad. I pulled off the dripping fly and rolled it tight, ringing out excess water. The tent itself was nearly dry. By 5:20 I was on the road, forty-five minutes later, I pulled into an Iowa gas station to wash the sleep and night visitors from my eyes. It was going to be a long day.