By Michael, on December 31st, 2012 
Authored By Jason Miner
Camping is one of those activities that people either love or hate. Unless you are an avid camper you don’t know what you are up against. There are certain basic equipment needs and planning that needs to be done beforehand to make for a successful experience. Or, if you are like me and my family you can throw some things together and fly by the seat of your pants. Either way you go I can guarantee you that camping is an extremely bonding experience.
When my children were small we didn’t have a lot of money for vacations but I was determined that we would go on a family vacation at least once a year. What made it even more fun was the fact that my husband did not like to go on vacations. On the rare occasion that he would attend one of our vacations, going camping was simply out of the question. The only camping he was going to do was in our bedroom. But since we didn’t have a lot of money and both of my children loved the out of doors I decided that we would give it a try.
I looked around for a tent that we could all fit into, including my mother because I wasn’t going to do this thing alone with two kids on my first time out. We found a very nice tent on sale and it even had a screened in kind of a porch thingy on front to keep the bugs off while you ate. We had a little Coleman stove, a few pots and pans, bedding (including an air mattress for my Mom’s back), and food.
We live in Texas and there are some lovely state parks here with beautiful lakes and lots of lush green forests. What I wasn’t aware of was that some of these lakes are full of alligators. That’s an interesting fact you might want to know ahead of time. My son loved to fish, as do I and my daughter loves to read while we fish. There we were on the banks of the lake fishing our little hearts out when my son decides to wade out a few feet to get a better cast. Mind you now, he’s only five or six years old. As I started to tell him to come back on shore I look up and see what looked like a moving log. I asked my daughter what she saw, and when I did she just calmly got up and snatched her brother out of the water. Then she turned to me and calmly said, “Alligator”. That’s when it’s good to have someone like my daughter around.
A 63-year-old was dangling a fish he was holding in front of the 9-foot gator. Wallace lured the gator over with the fish, before placing his hand on the surface of the water. We’re sure he wasn’t expecting to have the appendage bitten off as well. Read the entire store here
The knowledge that alligators were around just set the mood for the rest of the camping trip. If you have ever been camping in a tent you at night, in the darkest dark, with three ladies and one tiny man then you can appreciate what I’m saying. There are some scary sounds in the woods and the only thing separating you from “them” is a flimsy piece of nylon. And being novice campers we didn’t have a clue that it’s unwise to leave food unsecured. Even if it’s up on a table or in the tent at your feet!
It’s the middle of the night and we’ve finally gone to sleep when we hear rustling and scratching on the side of our tent. Somehow we all ended up huddled together in the middle of the tent contemplating our next move. Since I was in charge of this expedition it was my responsibility to check things out. I was armed with a flashlight and the motherly instinct to protect. As I made my way out of the tent I was terrified when I saw several pairs of red glowing eyes, not knowing exactly what to do I ran at them and at the top of my loudest whisper (for the sake of our neighbors) screamed shoo! We were saved.
The next morning we did some investigative work to see what the little creatures had done and what they were after. Inadvertently we had left a box of cookies inside the tent in the corner and they had actually chewed or clawed through enough to make a small hole. The nice well seasoned campers next door said, “Didn’t you know you were supposed to lock up all your food or hang it from the tree?” We do now.
Author Bio:
Jason Miner plays a vital role for www.blogcarnival.com. He is an expert in writing topics of different categories. He is helping the carnival team to grow & working on making this an even better place for bloggers.
Picture Credit- herpindiego.com
