The Night the Swamp Attacked Us
The King and Queen as it may have looked to our enemies lurking in the swamp
One way we stay on budget through the months is by balancing the type of camping we do.
We try to do as much “free” camping as we can find.
This process takes up quite a bit of Andrea’s time as she juggles the various online resources, with our travel routes, gas prices, and weather.
The free camping areas are usually our favorites as they tend to be more rural, solitary, and there is plenty for us to explore.
The sunrises and sunsets are usually amazing over the different landscapes.
The night skies remind us of being back at Naked Acres in Wyoming, so vast and bright.
There is something about being out in nature alone that helps remind you of the smallness of your problems to the world.
It also means we are responsible for our own security and must really pay attention to what’s going on around us.
A night view of the Queen and the swamping jungle surrounding us.
That brings us to Halloween night 2021. Andrea and I are free camping spot in central Florida in what we called the swamp lands.
The area is lush with vegetation. Trees that seemed to reach to the top of the sky. Palm bushes sprouting up from the ground everywhere reminded me of volcanoes erupting with their giant palm leaves.
Vibrantly colored birds fly through the area and squirrels seemed to be chasing each other around by the dozens.
All of this surrounded by the swamps of central Florida. Which in the minds of a couple kids from the mountain time zone, meant gators, snakes and lots of them even though we never actually saw one 😊
One of the trees we found ourselves just staring at in amazement during our walks.
We had been here for a couple days and had gotten to know the area well through our hikes.
Although it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, we were only about 15 minutes from a large metro area. This meant people could drive out to this area for all kinds of behavior without the intent of camping.
Sitting by the fire, we were enjoying the night sky, and reflecting on the amazingness of this journey and all that is still to come.
All the sudden, the palm trees and bushes about four feet away from us start rustling. No ordinary rustling, but certain death is coming rustling.
It was as if the entire swamp area had sprung to life. We jumped up from the fire, ready for a fight.
Certain that at any moment wild boars, alligators, kids playing a Halloween prank on us, bad guys wanting to harm us, or maybe even a T-rex would come barreling through the swamp.
I grab a stick from the fire and aimed it at the bushes hoping for a glimpse of the fierce opponent that was awaiting me.
Andrea runs into the airstream to get us our headlamps and our pistol.
Now it’s time to get tactical and take the fight to this unknown enemy. 😊
With the brightness of our headlamps, and Andrea asking, “who’s out there?” the noises suddenly quit as fast as it had arrived.
My years of police training told me that if things suddenly go silent that means the bad guys are hiding nearby.
Andrea and I grew equally quiet, turned off our headlamps and waited for just a few seconds before the noise returned.
Quickly turning on our lights, we were greeted with many sets of the creepiest eyes ever staring back at us.
Four feet in front of us was a possum digging through the palm bushes.
The trees were crawling with his friends and relatives. We could see them climbing up and down the tree taking the occasional break to stare back at us.
Thankfully it was only a family of possums that decided to visit our area.
I’m afraid our response to this situation would not have done much to deter a T-Rex.
Andrea and I decided we would enjoy our area during the day and allow this family to do their thing at night.
Suddenly being locked inside the Queen streaming a movie seemed like a great way to spend Halloween night.
The crime scene from the great Possum attack of 2021. During the daylight of course!