Personal Narrative: A Walk In The Woods

“Hey kids come on get in!” My dad yelled across the parking lot. Reilly, Olivia and I were going camping with our dads just for the weekend. We got in the car and began our 2 hour drive to Hocking Hills. It was a boring drive, and we were cramped in the back with all of the camping gear, tents, food, clothes, bedding. Eventually we got to the campground and set up our tents. It was a nice cozy little area. We had woods all around us except in front of us where the car was. Reilly, Olivia and my tent was in the middle of our dads’ tents. After we had everything set up we did some exploring in the woods. We didn’t know what secrets it held.
It was still light out so the woods weren’t that scary. They were fun. We went running through the woods

pretending that something was chasing us. We were in so deep that we couldn’t even see our tents. It made Olivia nervous, but Reilly and I were having fun. We ran a few more yards and saw a small fort. Being the curious suburban folk we are we had to go check it out. It was very basic, mostly just logs stacked on top of each other with a simple roof only about 5 and half feet tall. The one end of the square was open like the door. We didn’t go in because we didn’t know if there was an animal living there or not. We started making up scary stories to go with it. We heard a deep, manly voice in front of us. It was terrifying. We ran into the fort for safety. Hopefully the person wouldn’t see us in there. We were huddling in the back of the fort, but it was too late. The person came in. It was very clear that this was where he lived. He was in rags and was carrying a dead deer. He crawled in with the deer and threw it at us. He hadn’t see us. We almost threw up from the stench of the dead deer and the fact that it was lying on our laps. Thankfully it was already drained of blood. He left, but he closed the door. I began whispering,
“We have to get out of here but it's too small to run around him and we can’t open the door.” We then quickly created a plan that we hoped would work. We waited for him to come back in. When he finally came back in and before he closed the door, we stabbed him with Olivia’s pocket knife. We then crawled over and around his body. As soon as we got out, he was back up and was fighting against the pain. We only had stabbed him in the leg but he could still stand. We began running back to camp. He was trying to chase after us but he couldn’t run, especially not up hill.We got to the top of the hill and I just had to yell something at him.
“That’s what you get animal killer!” I exclaimed. I knew I was a hypocrite but I didn’t really care. His response was simply a scream of rage and agony. We made it back to the campsite, and told our dads that there was a homeless man in the woods. He said we should be fine as he put a trip wire around our tents, so if anything would run in our camp ground it would be tripped and ring a bell to wake us.
The night was uneventful after that incident. We slept wonderfully and no homeless man or anything bothered us. That day was reserved just for canoeing. We drove to the rental place and they took us 8 miles up the river. I was in a canoe with Olivia, Reilly was in a canoe with her dad, and my dad was kayaking. The first few hours were great we stopped along the way and ate our lunch and continued on. About four miles away from where we were to finish, we started smelling this beautiful scent. It smelled like fries and cookies and everything that you dream you could eat without getting full. That’s when Reilly’s dad spoke up
“We should go see the restaurant that is selling that food it smells delicious.” Everyone nodded in agreement except for me.
“What if it’s like from Hansel and Gretel and we get eaten and die?” They all just looked at me like I was crazy and they started heading towards the bank. I had to do something.
“No guys you can’t go!”
“Well, why not?” My dad asked.
“‘Cause I really gotta pee.”
“They surely should have a bathroom there.”
“Dad you know me, I don’t go in weird restaurant bathrooms.”
“That’s right.” he said sadly.

“We should start moving faster so I can get back and go pee.” After persuading them more they all decided that was a good idea. About 20 minutes later the smell was gone but the river split in two. On one side there was gigantic rapids, on the on the other side there was a waterfall.
“Where should we go?” asked Olivia. We all took a vote and the rapids won because the worst case scenario, we would tip over. Unlike in the waterfall where we would all go down the fall, and possibly get hurt at the bottom. We started on the rapids, Reilly and her Dad were the first ones to fall and their canoe floated past us, then her dad, then Reilly herself. They eventually got to the bank and climbed up. Then my dad went down, he immediately grabbed onto the bank so he wasn’t that wet. I knew that Olivia and I were going to go down. Our canoe tipped and we fell in the middle of the river like how Reilly had. We floated until we could swim our way to the bank. Once we climbed up the bank, we were greeted by Reilly, her dad and my dad.
“Is everyone ok?” My dad asked. Everyone nodded and muttered stuff about being

cold.
“Luckily the end is right over there” He pointed about half of a mile down the river and there was the canoe place. We walked through a field to get there.
“Oh lord, are you guys ok?” the worker nervously asked.
“Yeah the rapids took us out.” Olivia said.
“Oh. They weren’t supposed to be there at this time of year.”
“Well it was either that or go down the waterfall. Yeah we aren’t pleased. Can we have our money back?” My dad asked. After some bantering we got towels and our money back. Even though it was the best canoeing trip ever.
We got in the car and drove back to the campsite. When we got there our stuff was being raided by raccoons, our clothes were strewn everywhere, and our food was being devoured by them. All of our provisions were gone. It wasn’t that big of a deal because there was a town nearby where we could get more. However, it was still a waste of money. Since it was night time, because the canoeing took a long time, and so did drying off and coming back it was prime raccoon time. It was a party at our campsite.
“What are we gonna do?” I asked. No one really responded but then my dad came up with an idea.
“Well, we should try and distract them with something else.” He reached into his glove compartment and grabbed a huge red ball that is for our dog.
“They’ll never remember our stuff; they’ll be too distracted with the ball.”
“Exactly, they will be too distracted to continue raiding our stuff and we can grab it then shoo them away.” My dad turned off the car and rolled down the window and threw the ball at them. They were interested in it for about a good 5 seconds but then they ripped it to shreds and continued on raiding our stuff.
“Nice job, dad. Not only have we lost all of our food and clothes we also lost a ball for Sarabi when we get back home.” He just gave me the stink eye. “Ok, so we can get out of the car and go hide in the woods so they think we are just like them, so we will have to be crouched down on all fours. Then, on my count run in and scare them away.” I explained to them. They all looked at me like I was crazy but began to get out of the car very quietly. We were in the woods about 10 minutes. The racoons were used to us being there and thought we were harmless. So I began to whisper
“3,2,1” and we all ran into the campsite screaming like maniacs.
“For Narnia!” I screamed
“Get off of my sweater!” Olivia yelled.
“Die invaders!” Reilly shouted. The dad’s were boring and just screamed. They all scattered very quickly and left our stuff alone.
“Good idea Maria.” Everyone said. We proceed to pick up and throw away most food and pick up our clothes. Thankfully, they had only gotten into Olivia’s stuff and not Reilly or mine. After everything was cleaned up we had a fire and went to bed. It had been a long day.
The next day we woke up early to leave and head back home. The car ride was very boring and it consisted of mostly the three of us sleeping and the dads talking about sports. No one back home believed any of our stories, and they made fun of us for “lying”. But the joke's on them because the three of us had the best weekend ever when most of their weekends were Netflix marathons. Never will I ever think camping is boring or stupid ever again.