Post # 12: Narrative/Yellowstone

For this entry I will post the narrative that I wrote for my class.  It does in a way connect to Finland in the sense that I felt like Yellowstone and Finland had the same feel to them.  This is probably do to the fact that 70% of Finland is Forest.  So here is my story.

S. Andy Green

Writing 150

3.23.2015

The Beast in the Dark

The bright summer sun shone through the drivers side window and warmed my face.  It was nearly twilight.  My wife of two months quietly sat in the seat beside me, her golden hair glistening in the sun.  This is going to be a trip to remember, I thought to myself.  The tall evergreens occasionally gave way allowing glimpses of the many beautiful lakes which lay secluded amongst the rolling hills.  The road twisted and turned as if it were a ribbon which lay softly on the land.  It felt like home.  It was truly God’s country.

We had been traveling all day and were excited to finally arrive and set up camp.  Never before had I considered tent camping in Yellowstone.  I was rather surprised and very skeptical when my wife suggested such a trip for my birthday.  I was under the impression that the tent campsites in Yellowstone had high fences to keep animals out.  I was wrong.  When we pulled into the campground we stopped at the front office.  My wife went to check us in while I waited with the truck.  As I waited I searched for even the slightest sign of a fence, but my efforts were in vain.  The big evergreens that I had found pleasant and beautiful on our drive now seemed menacing as they surrounded the campground.  The threat of the wild unknown was unsettling.  I was suddenly drawn away from my thoughts as my sweet wife opened the passenger door and hopped in the truck.

“We are good to go!” My wife announced excitedly.  She seemed oblivious to the omnipresent feeling of danger.  She could find the silver lining in anything.   I always admired that about her.   We drove on in search of our campsite.  When we finally found it, I was relieved to see that we were in the middle of a sea of tents.  At least if a bear did meander into our campground our campsite would be the least likely place for it to end up.  

We quickly set up our tent then proceeded to try to get a fire going.  Unfortunately the wood, though it seemed dry on the outside, was still green and moist on the inside.  It would not catch fire.   “I thought you were an Eagle Scout,” my wife said sarcastically.

“I am!” I exclaimed, “It’s not me it’s the wood!”  I tried a couple more times and then decided that the best course of action would be to go back to the main office and buy some dry wood.  The dry wood lit up like a christmas tree.  It burned hot enough that we were able to also burn the fresh wood that he had brought.  We had a fire!  “How’s that for an Eagle Scout?”  I said as I winked at her.

The sun by this point had sunk low below treetops.  The fire brought comfort and held the ever growing darkness at bay.  We cooked our dinner and enjoyed a quiet evening next to the fire.  As the flames burned low we turned our gaze to the sky.  It was lit up by countless stars.  The stars shone extra brightly because there was no light from the moon to detract from their glory.  

Though the sky was bright the earth was dark, so dark in fact that it was difficult to see my hands when I looked down.  We turned on our lanterns and cleaned up the camp making sure to put all of our food in the covered bed of our truck.  We then secured everything and went to bed.

I woke up with my heart pounding as a deep growl swept through our campsite.  I lay in my sleeping bag as I tried to come to my senses, convinced that it was all in my head.  It was just a bad dream, I thought, when suddenly another growl sounded followed by rustling just outside of our tent.  I quietly sat up.  This is just my luck.  My mind flashed to the words of a comedian that we had listened to on the trip up.  He joked about how funny it is that we pay money to go out and sleep with animals.  He also poked fun at how people in sleeping bags were like perfectly made burritos for a bear.  His jokes seemed all too real to be funny now.  I quietly attempted to wake my wife.  She slowly woke.  “Do you hear that?”  I whispered.  

Still not fully awake she answered back in an loud and some what annoyed voice, “It’s just a fire, go back to sleep.”

“No,” I said with a stern whisper.  “It’s not a campfire, that is a growl!”  Just then another deep growl penetrated our ears.  

My wife shot up.  Wide eyed she asked, “What do we do?”

“Pray,” I said as another long growl sounded, followed by more rustling.  We prayed to know what we needed to do.  When we had finished, we felt comforted but not calmed.  We were not “out of the woods” yet.  A very real sense of danger still filled the tent.  I carefully opened the tent window hoping to get a glimpse of the beast that tortured our imaginations.  I could see nothing.  A foul stench infiltrated the tent.  The sound of heavy breathing seemed to be less than twenty yards away.

My wife softly grabbed my arm and said, “I feel that we need to go to the truck.”

“The truck?” I asked.  The truck sat about the same distance away as the noise but in the opposite direction.  “I am not sure leaving the tent is the best idea,” I said.

“No,” she said, “I really do feel that we need to go to the truck.”  

I knew that I had to make a decision.  Should I follow my wife’s feelings or rely on my own common sense?  I questioned.  I knew that she was an equal in our relationship and that she could receive revelation for our companionship just as well as I could.

“Are you sure we need to go to the truck?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “I am positive.”

“Ok, I trust you.” I answered.  “Just let me put on my pants before we go.”  My wife must have heard “lets go” because before I knew it she was out of the tent with no shoes quickly making her way to the truck, keys in hand.  What the heck, I thought, I told her to wait.  I quickly shot out of the tent after her with no shoes and my pants half on.  She was already in the truck waiting for me.  She unlocked the door and allowed me to enter, then quickly locked it again once I was in.

“We made it!” she said breathing a sigh of relief.

“I thought I told you to wait until I had my pants on!” I exclaimed as I began to laugh.  “Lets see what it is,” I said as I climbed into the back seat to get a better view.  As I was climbing in the back seat my foot hit the horn of the truck.  An alarming sound rang through the whole campground.  We both broke out into laughter.  I searched for a flashlight but they were all back in the tent.

“Here, use this,” my wife said as she handed me her camera.  I opened up the sliding back window and stuck the camera through.  Flash!  Our surroundings lit up for a split second.  The flash was too fast for us to be able to determine what it was.  We hurriedly checked the LCD screen of the camera.  There it was, right in the middle of the screen.  It stood about fifteen yards away from our tent.  It had to be at least six feet tall from the bottom of its legs to the top of its shoulders and weighed at least a ton.  The menace was non other than a huge bull American bison.  We both breathed a sigh of relief and then broke out into laughter again.  Amongst the laughter my wife came up with an excellent name for our new friend.

“We will call him Bear,” she said with a grin.  We looked at the clock. “12:01,” my wife exclaimed, “that means… it’s your birthday!  Happy Birthday!”

“Thanks,” I said.  “Now lets go back to bed.”  We got out of the truck and went back to our sleeping bags.  As I fell back to sleep I thought to myself,  I am very grateful to have trusted my wife.  In hindsight, had it actually been a bear, leaving the tent and going to the truck could have proven very dangerous, but because we found out what our intruder was it made it possible for us to rest easy.  Bear bedded down where he had been standing and slept there the rest of the night.

I woke up at six just as the sun was beginning to rise.  I peaked out of the tent window to see Bear’s gray silhouette stand up and leave.  He too must have known that our campsite was the safest in all of the campground.  That is why he choose to stay here.

The rest of the day was awesome!  We explored Yellowstone and even got to see a black bear on the side of the road as we were driving.  As the day was drawing to a close we made our way back to camp.  Less than two miles from our campground we saw a bunch of cars parked off to the side of the road.  We pulled over as well to see what all the commotion was about.  We found out that a grizzly and her cub had been spotted about a hundred yards off the road.  They were out of sight by the time we got out to look for them.  Needless to say, when we went to bed that night we slept in the truck.