a few weeks ago, camden and his dad went on a camping trip for one night and two days. his father has some land about two hours from our home, one of those hours takes place on an old dirt road that, due to a nearby river and the mountain rains, gets flooded and full of muddy puddles quite often. honestly, these camping escapades are something i’ve become weary of him doing due to scary past experiences … one especially dreadful experience seems to stand out in particular.


maybe five or six year ago, before camden and i were married and i was still in school, camden and his dad ventured up the canyon and up towards the river for their few days of camping in the wild. before they departed, camden said that he would call me on his way back down, just past the old dirt road, wherein they could get cell service once again and let me know they were safe. he also mentioned that this phone call wouldn’t take place any later than six or maybe seven o’clock, making sure to let me know that they would be more than halfway down the mountain before it was to get dark. as i at the time went to school in the evening from five until ten, i remember sitting in a class with my cellphone on vibrate jammed in my pocket against my thigh, so i would be sure to feel its buzz when he called. as the night ticked on second by second, then hour by hour, it was soon eight o’clock and i still hadn’t heard anything from camden. i became increasingly nervous and was almost sure something had most definitely gone terribly wrong. i started to check my phone every few minutes just incase i had missed the vibrate and even stepped into the hall to give him a call, just incase he had forgotten our earlier agreement. but nothing. finally around nine fifteen … my phone rang. on the other line was a franticly panicked camden who was now on the side of the road with his dad after just hitting a seven point elk in their ever-so-small suzuki sidekick. apparently they had decided to stay up camping a little while longer as they had been having great success fishing and couldn’t bring themselves to leave. once they did, after just passing the old dirt road with the sun now starting to set, their visibility became low which made this huge elk in the middle of the road hard to see until it was to late. they hit it head-on, right on the passenger side or camden’s side, in-which its antlers punctured the windshield first and then wrapped around crushing in the passenger door and windows. honestly, after hearing the story in full and seeing the pictures of the demolished car, i consider the fact that camden walked away with relatively minor injuries, let alone somehow still being alive, a complete miraculous miracle. that evening, after receiving  that phone call, i rushed up to the hospital where they would be taking him. his eyes and skin were full of pieces of glass from all the broken windows and he needed stitches along his hands and arms. his jaw was swollen from the impact but thankfully not broken and besides the few scars he still has on his arms, knees, jaw, and hands he thankfully has no other physical reminders of the “elk accident” as we now have come to call it.



this is why i now felt “not so sure” when camden again wanted to go up the mountain and passed the old dirt road with his dad camping just a few weeks ago … and this is why i made camden swear on his life that if he was to go, he would no matter what find a way to call me as soon as he was to get cell service, which would absolutely be before anything close to dark out. and this is also why, when that day came wherein camden was supposed to be making his way down the mountain and it was again dark and he again still hadn’t called … i wound myself into a panic. when ten o’clock struck, with still no word, i found my way onto the phone with the highway patrol service, in tears, describing their car which i was sure at this point would be found at the bottom of a lake or at the base of a wayward cliff. however, mid-conversation with a slightly disinterested highway dispatch lady, my phone beeped in a second call which was thankfully camden. it had rained the night before causing large mud puddles, one of which their van became stuck in and despite all their tugging, digging, and pushing still couldn’t get out. -this rain storm by the way, was actually more like a violent thunderstorm wherein a bolt of lightening had struck the mountain top just less than a mile from where they were camping which of course caught the mountain on fire, which then camden and his older brother who has been staying up there decided they should traverse the mountainside and play firefighter to put the blazing flames out … {sigh} another day’s story perhaps … can i just tell you, once i found out camden was safe, i have never felt the multitude of so many opposite emotions flooding through my body all at the same time. i was so thankful, relieved, and ecstatic that camden was alive and ok, yet i was completly angry, hysterical, and altogether beside myself that i was once again put into the position of not knowing what was going on, what to do, and in addition to all this, if they were even alive. one day i may be able to laugh about all this or maybe even just be able to tell the story without getting all worked up again but as for now i’m still counting my blessings, continuing to reboot, beginning to breathe, and reminding myself it all turned out ok.