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- [00:01]
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- [01:20]
Danielle
Hi everyone welcome back to national park after dark thank you for joining us again for another trail.
- [01:25]
Cassie
Tales episode i'm cassie and i'm danielle and trail tale episodes are ones in which we read listener emails about your experiences with pretty much everything it doesn't have to have to happen in a national park we've kind of expanded our horizons with that but it would be nice if it was like kind of tangentially associated with the outdoors just to stay on brand the outdoors or the.
- [01:49]
Danielle
Paranormal i mean we do ghost stories and sign stories all the time yeah.
- [01:53]
Cassie
That'S true as well i take it back it could be anything okay it.
- [01:57]
Danielle
Can be anything we just have to find it interesting right that is true.
- [02:01]
Cassie
And i am the keeper of the trail tales i have the power so you gotta impress me first that you.
- [02:11]
Danielle
Do.
- [02:13]
Cassie
Okay would you like to go.
- [02:14]
Danielle
First sure my first story is titled signs from a dumpster hi ladies my story does not involve the outdoors but i know how much danielle appreciates signs from loved ones and i'd love the opportunity to share a few i have received to preface i would like to include a trigger warning for pregnancy loss a close friend of mine passed away years ago while i was in high school this friend whose name was derek was close to me and several of my siblings my shortly after he passed i had a dream in which derek showed me what the earth looked like from his point of view it's hard to explain but it was almost as if he now existed as the wind in the trees he told me that in his heaven someone named lemon let him visit earth every wednesday to check in on everyone but he said occasionally he will sneak out of heaven and visit earth on other days as well he was always a bit rebellious since that dream every time i see a lemon as silly as it seems i think of him several years later i was going through a difficult time on a particularly difficult day he crossed my mind and i realized he had not sent me a sign in a while so i casually asked him to send me something but he had to make it obvious so i didn't miss it at that time i lived in an apartment building with a shared dumpster in the parking lot i went to throw away some trash and noticed something new drawn on the dumpster it was what looks to be an art palette with the word lemon on it one thing we have always bonded over was my love for art when he was always away at boot camp he would write me letters that almost always started with a question how's the drawing going that was as direct of a sign as i could have hoped for i'll include a photo i took of this drawing fast forward again a few days later and my sister told me derek had visited her in a dream he was talking about her son who was only one year old at the time he then told my sister the next one will be safe with me a year after receiving that message and admittedly for forgetting about it i found out i was pregnant shortly after finding this out i lost my baby after having locked myself in the house for a while i decided to embark on a mission to find my husband a new sweatshirt a dumb little mission to keep my mind off of things while shopping i found a shirt with lemons printed on it i casually thought to myself oh hi derek but then quickly recalled the conversation i had had with my sister one year prior and in that moment i knew my baby was safe with him i could go on and on about the signs he sent me throughout the years but i will just include one final one as this one involves you two while listening to npad i was inspired by all the stories of signs from loved ones and once again asked derek for a sign on that day i was listening to trail tales episode twenty seven in this episode someone had written about their hesitation to begin a business and had asked for a sign to guide them in making this decision the sign they had received a big old lemon sitting on a tree trunk i don't know how that lemon got there but it's crazy to think it served as a sign twice for two complete strangers if that writer is listening i hope you started your business and i hope it it is absolutely thriving thank you both for everything you do you've given me a reason to seek hope in dark times and provide more laughs than you know i wish you both all the happiness in the world sincerely ally you oh ally beautifully written what a beautiful sign story too and the fact that it also you got a sign from someone else's sign within our podcast it's just small world.
- [05:44]
Cassie
It'S very inception like and i love it and we do receive a lot of those sign within a sign type of things so we are really happy to hear that by sharing other people's story we can provide comfort to people that are needing it and seeking it okay my first story is titled a hippo in the night i do love hippos you your well i almost said your favorite animal we saw in south africa but i know that isn't true.
- [06:11]
Danielle
And my second favorite animal i saw in south africa the hippo just couldn't outdo the ostrich i saw so or.
- [06:18]
Cassie
Ostriches i saw you were absolutely captivated.
- [06:23]
Danielle
I was.
- [06:28]
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- [06:34]
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- [07:27]
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- [08:31]
Cassie
Okay a hippo in the night hi cassie and danielle my name is terri i stumbled upon your podcast about eight months ago and i have enjoyed listening to your stories they keep me entertained while i'm doing housework or weight training or other tasks that i'm not normally super excited about back in the nineties i was a peace corps volunteer in the comoros islands which are in the indian ocean between mozambique and madagascar about a year into our service it was time to take a vacation my peace corps friend elise and i wanted to go to madagascar but elise's dad and brother were coming to visit her in the comoros and they wanted to go on a safari in kenya afterwards so it was decided that i would join elise and her family on safari in kenya then once her family went back to the states we would continue to climb mount kenya africa's second highest peak kamar our shinzunai language instructor who was also elise's boyfriend would join us the first snag came when we tried to take the ferry from our island to the island of grand camore where the international airport was there was a dock worker strike and all ferries were canceled there were no flights going to grand camore either elise kamar and i were used to things not going as planned but her father had limited vacation time and had booked an expensive safari and he didn't want to miss any of it after much stress and hand wringing we managed to hitch a ride on a small cargo ship that was leaving that night for grand kamore and we succeeded in making our flight to nairobi the next day after a nice safari elise's brother and father flew back to the states and we felt like the real adventure was about to begin we returned to nairobi and did the best we could do to prepare for our trek on mount kenya we rented warm sleeping bags and clothing and stocked up on food at that time freeze dried food was unavailable in nairobi so we bought jars of peanut butter and canned food before heading to mount kenya we decided to take a quick trip to hell's gate national park which is one of the few parks where you are allowed to hike without a guide due to the absence of lions i want to say i'm scared to say it because if i'm wrong people are going to be mad but i'm pretty sure hell's gate national park is the area that inspired there's like a rock formation in there that inspired pride rock for the lion.
- [10:38]
Danielle
King well let's look it up so.
- [10:40]
Cassie
It'S just so interesting if that's true and there's no lions there probably historically there were i would imagine yeah let me know if i'm right yeah you're.
- [10:49]
Danielle
Right it says pride rock from the lion king was inspired by the real world rock formations in kenya including hell's.
- [10:56]
Cassie
Gate national park okay it feels good to be right every once in a while okay we hiked in the park with an israeli couple we had met on the bus then camped with them in a nearby campground on lake naivasha this campground was a nice green grassy area shaded by acacia trees along part of the lakeshore there were bathrooms and hot showers which were a real luxury for elise and me a few donkeys wandered around the campground i think they were the mowing service much of the lakeshore is surrounded by flower farms the campground was separated from the adjacent properties and from the lakeshore by thick hedges and a deep ditch these were to discourage the hippos from wandering into the campground from the lake a couple of night watchmen roamed around at night to chase errant hippos back into the water after a peaceful night at the campground we headed off towards the town of choria on the lower slopes of mount kenya to begin our trek the national park gate was about ten miles up a dirt road from town so to save money we decided to hike up to the park gate and camp there instead of hiring a ride we were planning on taking five to six days to hike to the summit at over seventeen thousand feet and then back down the road wound up the mountain with very thick forest on either side could hear monkeys elephants and other unseen animals crashing around in the trees the muddy road was marked with elephant and buffalo tracks and the edge of the forest was littered with the remains of trees that had been knocked down by elephants as we hiked we grew increasingly more nervous about the wildlife that we could hear but not see buffalo were our biggest concern as they are grumpy and prone to charges without much provocation but the presence of elephants leopards and hyenas also had us on high alert this should remind me of like it's just so out of our our day to day experience that this seems so wild but i just will never forget being in south africa you were driving i was absolutely not gonna drive our rental.
- [12:48]
Danielle
Car for context it's because we had to drive on the wrong side of.
- [12:54]
Cassie
The road it was just it was just tripping me up so bad i just i it was a mental roadblock i just couldn't get over i don't even think i tried we were on.
- [13:02]
Danielle
The wrong side of the car and the wrong i shouldn't say wrong because it's different in different countries but we were on the opposite side of the road and the opposite side of the car and then we ended up buying buying renting a automatic instead of a standard even though standards are pretty like common there they're more common because i was like okay i could normally drive a standard but being on the wrong the opposite side of the car having the stick shift on the opposite side and having and it was just like let's do one thing at a time time let's go with an automatic yeah.
- [13:35]
Cassie
It'S like i can't that's almost too much well as we're struggling and by we i mean you and i'm just like you can do it as i'm.
- [13:45]
Danielle
Hitting curbs and like taking corners way.
- [13:47]
Cassie
Too tightly just baboons come out of the forest and just are crossing the road i'm like oh my god baboons and you like almost slammed on the brakes i don't think i ever imagined myself saying that as a passenger in.
- [14:01]
Danielle
A vehicle like stop there's baboons in.
- [14:03]
Cassie
The road like i'm sorry i know you're really busy but i don't want to strike those animals okay here we go sure enough after several hours of hiking we rounded a corner into the road to see a large mother elephant and her baby in the middle of the road right in front of us about a dozen yards away the mother penned us with her eyes and spread out her ears spurring us to quickly backtrack until we were out of their sight we waited for a while thirty minutes an hour and until the elephants wandered back into the forest our nerves were really on edge at this point this was so very different from being in a guided safari vehicle as i mentioned earlier we were not able to load up on lightweight camping food and gear as a result our backpacks were really heavy we were hiking more slowly than we expected and we had to take many breaks after one of these breaks elise pulled a muscle in her leg while putting her backpack back on she was in a lot of pain and unable to go any further we were about three miles from the park gate and darkness was about an hour away and there was no place to camp and no fresh water before the park gate with no other plan in mind kamar and i decided to run to the park gate and ask for help while elise waited by the side of the road with our backpacks both kamar and i were too afraid to go alone but you left elise by.
- [15:19]
Danielle
Herself like she'll be fine it's like.
- [15:21]
Cassie
Okay so we jogged the last three miles up the road just as it started to rain i remember singing as i ran so as to warn any potential animal of our approach as at one point the heavy forest gave way to a couple of vistas i saw a beautiful bull elephant black from the rain down in a gully and a herd of buffalo off in the distance at the park gate we met a ranger who was about to drive down to the town for the night we haggled and got him to give all three of us a ride down the mountain for something like two hundred bucks when we picked up a lease on the drive down she tried to convince us all to try again but kamar and i overruled her having problems at nine thousand feet was bad enough what if it had been at fifteen thousand feet we were clearly not adequately prepared for this trek instead we decided to go back to the lovely campground at the lake to lick our wounds and regroup on our second night back at the campground i woke up to hear chomping and snorting right outside of our tent the moon was full and something very big was stepping on the corner of our tent and throwing its shadow onto the tent wall i really wanted it to be one of those donkeys but i knew it wasn't i was closest to the tent entrance and without much of a plan i quietly unzipped my sleeping b and the tent fly that's when elise woke up what's going on she asked hippo i whispered hoarsely well lay back down and be quiet and he'll leave so i did but he didn't at this point something must have startled him and he ran right across the tent i was out of the tent and up a nearby tree before i even knew what was happening i watched as the hippo trotted off towards the lake our tent fly wrapped around one of his legs my heart stopped as he turned to look at me but he then turned back towards the lake and disappeared into the night me where's elise kamar climbed out of the mangled tent and collapsed at the bottom of my tree the hippo stepped on me he gasped he was having trouble breathing and his chest hurt i was sure the hippo had broken some of his ribs maybe even punctured his lung oof by this point elise had found her glasses and was also out of the tent it was the middle of the night it was cold we had no vehicle and the nearest hospital was in the town of navasha several miles away i quickly wound my way through the campground looking for a vehicle i found one amidst a group of tents and started yelling loudly that we had an emergency and needed a car no one so much as unzipped their tent meanwhile one of the campground guards had gone to a nearby flower farm awoken the owner and pro procured a vehicle for us by eight am we were in a clinic drinking hot tea offered by a kind nurse and getting kamar checked out luckily he was not seriously hurt he had a large bruise on his upper chest in the perfect shape of a hippo's footprint and his shoulder was sore all his other symptoms were probably just shock elise's tent didn't fare as well the tent fly was shredded and the poles were bent up she managed to get the tent repaired by a nearby tailor but we were not able to replace the poles despite his injury kamar was keen on continuing our trip he was unable to carry a backpack with his shores god that's hard to say it's a tongue twister sore shoulder and we didn't have a functional tent anyway despite this we managed to travel around kenya for another week or so before heading back to the islands incidentally about six weeks later a coupe and a counter coupe in the comoros led by the led to the evacuation of all peace corps volunteers and i found myself back in nairobi but that's a story for another time enjoy the view but watch your back terry.
- [18:50]
Danielle
I guess it's better to be hurt by a hippo accidentally than having a hippo hurt you intentionally and no truer.
- [18:59]
Cassie
Statement has ever been said.
- [19:02]
Danielle
And with that enjoy the view but watch your.
- [19:04]
Cassie
Back imagine hippo footprint i'm imagining they're like they gotta be like huge the size of a dinner plate yeah it would be my whole your whole yeah just yeah that's incredible honestly he wasn't.
- [19:19]
Danielle
More injured i'm i'm picturing this that he wasn't more injured because it was so fast like maybe when the hippo was running through the tent he didn't even really put his full he or she i guess put their foot their full weight on yeah versus if they had been slowly walking and it was like crunch you know or something.
- [19:42]
Cassie
Yeah yeah.
- [19:46]
Danielle
Hipposer they didn't mean it though.
- [19:48]
Cassie
You can't just say that because you like their little ears yes i can.
- [19:54]
Danielle
It was it was truly an accident this time it sounds like it does.
- [19:59]
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- [20:06]
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You'Re hiring we at ziprecruiter know you can feel frustrated forlorn even like your efforts are futile and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine f fortunately ziprecruiter figured out how to fix all that and right now you can try ziprecruiter for free at ziprecruiter dot com zip with ziprecruiter you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles fast which is our absolute favorite f word in fact four out of five employers who post on ziprecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day fantastic so whether you need to hire four forty or four hundred people get ready to meet first rate talent just go to ziprecruiter dot com zip to try ziprecruiter for free don't forget that ziprecruiter dot com zip finally that's ziprecruiter.
- [20:59]
Danielle
Dot com zip my story is titled my brother saved us with science hi danielle and cassie first i want to say that both of you do an amazing job telling stories on your podcast in such an engaging and fun way while still being respectful and sensitive to the more challenging topics i really appreciate the diversity of stories you cover they're all so unique and interesting i prefer to stay anonymous but if you read this on the pod please give a shout out to my little sister emmy aka smallish human i got her hooked on the podcast a while back and now we chat about the episodes and listening to your stories has even inspired us to hike and get into the outdoors more cool love it yeah this story might have been much longer if my brother hadn't saved us with science but i hope you enjoy it anyway to set the stage it was february twenty twenty one and my brother and i were on a ski trip in colorado he drove out from ohio in his diesel four wheel drive truck and i flew in from the east coast i'm originally from colorado and live here now but at the time i was living on the east coast my brother is a farmer hence the truck and though he's not from colorado he's generally one of the most well prepared people i know he's on the very short list of people i inexplicably trust after skiing for a couple of days we were both sore and decided to take a break by heading down to the mount princeton hot springs and letting the hot springs work their magic it was a beautiful sunny day about thirty five to forty degrees fahrenheit we were staying in frisco and after enjoying the hot springs we started heading back knowing some snow was expected that evening we wanted to leave before the storm set in spoiler alert we were too late as we got in the truck and started driving up route ninety one after getting gas we immediately saw cars coming down the mountain covered in snow although it was still sunny and warm where we were we could tell we were heading straight into the storm sure enough we started up the mountain and hit snow the warm weather had caused the first bit of snow to melt on contact creating a slick layer of slush that was now covered in fresh snow the temperature was plummeting fast and expected to get into the single digits that night as we drove up the mountain we came across a small two seater front wheel drive only truck stuck on the side of the road it wasn't even in a snowbank the road was just so slippery that its tires couldn't get any traction my brother being midwest nice decided to stop and help we pulled off on the shoulder just ahead of the truck where we were uphill from the stuck vehicle as soon as my brother opened the car door and set his foot down he immediately slipped on the slush grabbing the truck to steady himself he looked at me laughed nervously and then went over to talk to the other driver a few minutes later he returned grabbed the tow straps out of the back and carefully hooked them up by this point i was getting increasingly nervous we were on a small shoulder on the side of the mountain with no guardrails or snow preventing us from yeeting over the edge and a steady stre stream of traffic passing just feet away during a snowstorm once the straps were secure my brother got back in the truck i asked what do you think he replied well we'll give it a try and slowly stepped on the gas we immediately started sliding backward down the hill towards the truck realizing this wasn't going to work he got out unhooked the straps and let the other driver know that we couldn't help when we got back in he hit the gas again but now we too were stuck in the same slushy mess we tried a couple more times to get out but to no avail and worse the more we tried the more we slid down the mountain towards the truck and the edge of the mountain at this point i was really starting to panic my brother however stayed calm we sat there for a moment weighing our options when another larger truck pulled up in uphill of us this one had better tires and a winch on the front built for pulling tourists out of the snow the driver got out talked to my brother and offered to try to pull us out he hooked up the winch to our truck and started pulling but instead of pulling us out his truck started sliding down the mountain towards us he stopped unhooked the winch and informed us that he wouldn't be able to help either then he drove off luckily without getting stuck himself my brother got back in the truck and said well shit now what i hadn't left the vehicle this entire time but i was practically hyperventilating at this point my brother sat in silence for what felt like five minutes but was probably only like thirty seconds before having an idea he had brought a large quantity of diesel exhaust fluid with him on his drive from ohio earlier that day he explained to me that def which reduces pollution from diesel engines is basically a mix of urea and water yes like p he knew it had a much lower freezing point than water and figured it might melt the snow just enough to give us traction it was now well below freezing at around twenty degrees degrees or so but still dropping he got out went over to the driver behind us to make sure he could call an actual tow truck and then came back to our truck he knew that if it worked we would not be stopping he grabbed a few gallons of def and doused the tires and the snow and the snow around all of our tires he got back in waited a minute to let it melt and said let's hope this works and gently stepped on the gas the tires caught traction and the truck slowly moved forward i still remember the relief i felt in that moment though i knew the drive back would not be a walk in the park i was just relieved to not be spending the night on the side of the road praying we didn't get hit by another vehicle we got back on the main road and didn't stop until we reached frisco a drive that normally would have taken thirty minutes took over an hour and a half the whole time i was sending text messages of screenshots of our location to another family member so that if we didn't make it they could send the cavalry most of the drive the visibility was so bad we couldn't see past the hood of the car the reception is spotty up through there so the find my feature on my phone was often not up to date but the text messages would sometimes get through that night ranked in the top three worst snowstorm driving conditions i've ever experienced i was so relieved to make it to i seventy and that's saying something i know you know once we're back in town and safe we celebrated with mexican food and margaritas then skied the next day now that i'm back living in colorado i always carry tire chains for my outback in the winter i also make it a point to avoid mountain driving and heavy snow whenever possible and have an emergency kit in case i get stuck and have to spend the night in the car i thought about that day a lot partially because it was traumatizing but partially because i aspire to the level of calm that my brother had in that situation i've been in a few less than ideal situations since then and have been able to stay level headed and get out of those situations so i guess that's growth anyways enjoy the view but seriously carry tire chains i've.
- [28:03]
Cassie
Been in a similar situation in washington not on a main road we ian and i went attempted to go to a trail that we shouldn't have that time of year with the vehicle that we had i mean it was his toyota tacoma but we didn't have any sort of things was necessary we didn't have chains we didn't have any sort of emergency kit we didn't have we were just like oh let's just go go and see if we can get to this trailhead and we didn't and we got really stuck but more so than that we legitimately almost slid down the mountain like toppled over the mountain off the side of the it was like an off road trail and to the point that i was so scared i got out of the car and i took the two dogs and i'm like if you want to continue trying to get the car out i'm not going down the side of the mountain in inside this car which i know is gonna happen so let's just call it and hopefully someone comes by in like two hours later a couple people on snow cats came by and helped us but it was so to the point that you know you're you get maybe an inch or two advancing and then you slide back a foot out of control yeah that's how that was and we were so like i had to get i couldn't even get out of the passenger side because it was dangling over the cliff like i had to go on his side and get.
- [29:29]
Danielle
That'S so scary yeah that's terrifying i had not as close of a call as that is by any means but i remember i was fresh out of college and i was doing this driving job that had me driving around northern new hampshire and there happened to be a blizzard and i was in a honda accord i did have snow tires i will say but to get to my next location the fastest way to do it would to be would be to cross the kangamangus highway which if you are from new hampshire or if you've been up to the white mountains you know is this very windy road that goes through the white mountains national forest and it's beautiful picturesque tons of mountains however in a blizzard it's not the ideal place to be but i was like yeah you know i saw other cars that like went up the road a little bit and i was like yeah sure this is fine and i'm driving and after a little while i stopped seeing any cars at all there's so much snow pile up that's on this road that there's no one else out there except i see someone on a snowmobile on the actual road and i was like that's not a good sign but i was like i'm already i'm already committed i'm in it like i'm here i'm in it and i remember i was going around this corner and there were they had guard rails on the side thankfully but the guardrails there was so much snow coming down that you couldn't really see the guardrails anymore because they were covered in snow and and also like little snow banks from like past plowing anyway i start going around this corner my car doesn't turn i go straight into the snowbank on the other side of the snowbank is a cliff drop and my car goes up the snowbank and then slides back down turns around and faces the other direction to go back to town and i was like if that's not a sign from the universe that i should not be on this road right now it literally turned you around.
- [31:30]
Cassie
Were you just holding like were you.
- [31:32]
Danielle
Just like i was just holding the steering wheel and it had messed up my bumper like my front bumper i'd actually hit something and i remember i drove into town and there's a gas station pretty much right when you get off the kangamangus and i stopped there and someone came out and they bungee corded my car back together because i had like stuff dangling from my car and it was very nice of them and then i called my work and i was like hi i kind of got in a car accident i'm if the weather's really bad up here i'm gonna go home and they were like okay please do well it's nice but.
- [32:07]
Cassie
Because there would be other jobs that would be like okay it would have.
- [32:11]
Danielle
Been nice if they didn't send me up there in a blizzard in the.
- [32:14]
Cassie
First place that's true that is true.
- [32:16]
Danielle
And it wasn't until i got in a car accident that they were like oh yeah you should probably come home i'm like yeah it snowed like two feet in the past hour so yeah i don't think i should be driving on the roads when there's like a national emergency or a state emergency alert to stay off the roads like maybe you shouldn't have made me work today.
- [32:34]
Cassie
If it was me i would have been like okay but like are you.
- [32:37]
Danielle
Mad at me i remember i was nervous like that they were gonna be like upset but i was just like i my nerves were so high after that that i just had to get.
- [32:48]
Cassie
Out of there of course okay my second story is titled lights mouse scream okay hi ladies i'm a big fan of the podcast and just finished listening to the grandma gatewood story she is such an inspiration and i hope i am as adventurous as her when i turn sixty seven my own small through hike story takes olympic national park in may of twenty twenty four i was on a backpacking trip with two friends along the olympic south coast trail it is a roughly sixteen mile trail a brisk walk compared to emma's twenty one hundred plus mile adventure that traverses beautiful beaches rocky coastlines creeks small rivers and old growth forest however you are at the mercy of the tides at a few points in this trail and can get caught at high tide during the long stretches of beach walking you really get a variety of scenery and landscapes on this trail but you also have to maneuver through sketchy and muddy ropes and ladders when over landing into the bluffs we planned to spend our first night at toliak point this camping area was ideal as it had plenty of sites along the edge of the forest where it meets the beach we set up our tents refilled our water at a nearby creek and gathered wood for a campfire the rest of the early evening we lounged on the beach while we ate our dehydrated meals and sipped on pineapple whiskey in front of our beach bonfire before we lost service we had we had read that the kp index for the northern lights was going to be high that weekend we told ourselves that it would be awesome to see them but it completely slipped our minds by the time we got to camp i blame it on exhaustion and the whiskey by ten pm we had retreated into our own tents exhausted from the hike and wanting to get an early start the next morning to beat the tides before our next camp i snuggled into my sleeping bag and had my eyes closed for a few minutes when i heard a rustling sound near my head i reminded myself eyes still closed that i had definitely shut the zipper of my tent before crawling into bed and tried not to think of what critter or critters could be making that noise after a moment or so i opened one eye just in time to see a mouse scurry up the mesh wall of my double wall tent unfortunately i didn't see where it went great okay keep calm i told myself it's just a mouse there is no way it can eat through that fabric right after another minute of internal mental reassurances i heard a scream in the distance could the mouse have made it that far already did it have more friends is someone getting murdered i asked myself millions of questions that went unanswered and tried to listen for more sounds but the waves crashing on the beach drowned out any possible murder occurring it sounded far enough away that i knew it could not have come from my friend's tents well i wasn't about to poke my head out of my own tent my survival instincts kicked in and said stay in bed dummy and i did after thirty or so more minutes of slight internal panicking and fighting the urge to have to pee i miraculously fell asle sleep in the morning we woke up ate our breakfast and began packing up camp i asked my friends if they had heard a scream too they did but had the same plan as i did to safely stay in the tent i chalked it up to a possible mouse encounter but was still wary there may have been a murder then we set off for the six miles or so to our next campsite we walked along the beach as the tide was out allowing you to see the mossy rocks and sea life not far from our original camp we passed by two girls and they stopped us to chat excitedly they asked did you guys see the northern lights us what no we went to bed early they then told us how the lights were on full display towards the northwest over the pacific ocean just past ten twenty pm based on the timestamps of their photos they had run up and down the beach waking other campers up to share those this once in a lifetime view somehow our little camp was missed as it was tucked in between the trees but that was the source of the screams we were so bummed the chance to see the northern lights this far south would have been spectacular fortunately however it did solve the murder slash not murder case we continued on to our next campsite that night we stayed up later than we wanted to and unfortunately the northern lights did not make a reappearance for us when we returned home a few days later my friend sent us pictures that she snapped right before she zipped up her tent that first night there you can make out the faint signs of the northern lights she had not realized that they were in full display due to the brightness of her display when she reviewed the picture before going to bed and it just ends but that's sad and it reminded me of you a little bit.
- [37:15]
Danielle
So that's chasing the northern lights yeah.
- [37:17]
Cassie
So that's why i wanted to include it because it is cool that that opportunity would have presented itself in such a beautiful place i mean olympic national park is just just stunning and it would have been such a a unique view to see something that you associate with you know the far north and olympic national park on the beach right and it just reminds me of wanting to see the northern light so bad but then just being sleepy you know.
- [37:43]
Danielle
I'M just like i can't i remember i did have a trip the first time i did ever see the northern lights and it wasn't the way that i saw them was not the full display display where it's like so bright it takes up the whole sky and you're just the photos you see online it did not look like that but i was in alaska and it was the very beginning of aurora borealis season it was in september and we had i have the alerts on my phone for the kp index to come up and i was there with a friend and it was like kp index is really high tonight like check it out and so before we went to bed we were looking didn't see anything didn't see anything and it was like well the height of it is supposed to be at three am so i set alarms like pretty frequently throughout the night and finally at like i think it ended up being like three thirty or something in the morning i go outside and we're sitting there and they're sure enough are the northern lights outside and they were all green they weren't a bunch of different colors and they were they were duller than the pictures that you see online if you google it but i could very clearly see them with the naked eye it wasn't like i think in especially in new england there's been a lot of like oh you can see the northern lights tonight like go outside and you can't see anything with your naked eye but then you take a photo and it's like.
- [39:07]
Cassie
Really bright and you're like wow they're here yeah that just happened a couple months ago for us yeah and you.
- [39:13]
Danielle
Could see like maybe slightly like it was like oh the sky does look like it has like a tinge of pink in it or something but i.
- [39:21]
Cassie
Wouldn'T have noticed unless someone told me to look for it in a picture yeah for sure but yeah and that.
- [39:29]
Danielle
And what i saw in alaska was not that experience i did we very much saw them with our naked eye it just wasn't the crazy light show that people go searching for so and i still have yet to see that i saw them in iceland i saw them in the airplane on the way back from iceland or the way to iceland i forget i think it was.
- [39:50]
Cassie
The way back i think that's what.
- [39:52]
Danielle
You told me i i saw them from the plane which was cool and they were really bright in that situation but i have yet to see like a full light display like how you see it in the pictures i'm still waiting for that in real life and i have to do some like nordic winter trips to specifically see the northern lights and they say that you should stay somewhere for like because it's not guaranteed but you should plan to stay somewhere for like seven to ten days to give yourself ample time to see a real show that's no problem yeah.
- [40:24]
Cassie
You work from home you can work.
- [40:26]
Danielle
From anywhere i know that's true i wanna i gotta just like go to norway for like two weeks or something in the middle of winter yeah and.
- [40:34]
Cassie
Her life tell me how it is.
- [40:36]
Danielle
Sweden yeah you're invited if you want to come okay it'll be cold.
- [40:43]
Cassie
All.
- [40:43]
Danielle
Right well my last story my last one before we do outsiders bonus stories is titled bryce canyon after dark in the spring of twenty twenty one after my first round of coveted vaccines and before the omicron outbreak i embarked on a solo road trip through utah i've been cooped up in my tiny los angeles apartment for a and armed with the false hope that the pandemic was coming to an end i got in my two thousand eight toyota rav four and drove east the plan was to hit up a few national and state parks swing through salt lake city for some spring skiing bachelor was still open and through lake tahoe to visit some friends in the bay area before heading back home the plan was also to bumble swipe my way through each destination no better way to explore a new city than with a local no better way to explore the bryce canyon hoodoos than with the fellow solo travel amateur photographer that you matched with at six pm who suggests you meet at the trailhead at ten so he can snap some photos at the full moon oh god there's also i know their next line's so funny there's also no better way to get murdered so i because i'm only slightly reckless shared my location with a friend told her i'd check in after the date and told scott the amateur photographer sleeping in the back of his toyota tacoma on a mountain bike trip in zion that i'd see him at ten i wanted to enjoy the view and daisy my friend with my location would be watching my back scott looked like his photos although he was as expected a bit shorter than he had claimed as expected that's a ruthless thing to add you know i.
- [42:25]
Cassie
What there's something that i have been very i view myself as fortunate in this regard is i've never really had to worry about that like i've never once been like how tall are you because i'm five three yeah chances are you're taller than me yeah so that's not really a problem like i've never been like okay for this potential person this is a factor that i really need to know beforehand it's so funny.
- [42:54]
Danielle
My friends used to make fun of me and like college and stuff because i've always liked tall guys and they're like cassie you're five two like say why are you taking that's what they'd say like especially my tall friends they'd be like come on like you don't need that you don't need that like.
- [43:10]
Cassie
Go for someone shorter it's like i'm sorry it's just the way that god.
- [43:15]
Danielle
Made me it's like i like what i like i can't help it but also men doesn't have to be taller than you you can date i mean look at zendaya and tom holland tom.
- [43:28]
Cassie
Holland zendaya relationship is what i think we should all strive for he's so.
- [43:33]
Danielle
I don't know their relationship enough to.
- [43:37]
Cassie
Know it's my whole algorithm but is.
- [43:40]
Danielle
It yeah i don't know enough about them i just know that they like.
- [43:45]
Cassie
Love each other they're so supportive of each other and they seem like like really like best friends and i think that's just like the best foundation to have for any relationship romantic relationship if you're best friends it makes life so fun and it feels like yeah they just genuinely care about each other and it's i don't know how it became my algorithm because i don't even really like i'm not really fans of them.
- [44:12]
Danielle
Individually yeah but you like their relationship and instagram has has caught on they've really caught on so anyway this person is not meeting her expectations for height but i guess was expected which is hilarious we had the navajo loop and queen's garden trail mostly to ourselves which was both lovely and terrifying and we chatted about how different it was for men and women to travel alone we stopped frequently so we could take photos and the hoodoos under the full moon were truly an incredible sight to see it would have been a perfect day if it wasn't for him breaking my number one trail rule playing music from a speaker oh no that is a pretty solid trail rule i can't i gotta a few hours later and one slightly awkward kiss later i sent proof of life to daisy and crept into my motel bed alone scott not a murderer spent the cold night in his toyota tacoma and the next day i drove towards salt lake city ready to swipe again danny that was the most unhinged story of i love it putting.
- [45:24]
Cassie
This man on blast he's just trying to have a good time he's like.
- [45:29]
Danielle
I just want to take pictures of the moon in the middle of the night and she's like he was short unimpressive awkward kiss awkward kiss you know what i like a girl who knows what she wants and she clearly knew that this was not for her so good for you and good for you for not feeling bad for sleeping in a warm motel room while he slept.
- [45:53]
Cassie
In his truck yeah it's like sorry.
- [45:56]
Danielle
I just sorry i don't like you.
- [45:58]
Cassie
I don't like you this is awkward and i gotta get out of here yeah yeah not the safest first date but you made it do it for the plot as they say okay my last story is titled from dad to hero great smoky mountains national park dark hi danielle and cassie i am super excited to write to you guys my name is gabe feel free to use names in the story and i have been listening to the pod for about five to six months now and love every story to be honest i've been wanting to submit this story for some time after starting to listen although i'm not sure why i hadn't yet but today is the day so let's get into it my family has been involved in our local boy scout troop since i first started when i was eleven ten years ago my dad became our scout master two years after i started and just recently left left in those eight years he was a scout master only one of the scouts didn't reach the eagle rank which is amazing considering only four percent of all scouts achieve that he also took us on multiple high adventure trips in those years including to the boundary waters twice south dakota and the great smoky mountains where this story takes place in twenty twenty two we went on the troop's third highest adventure trip to the great smoky mountains we spent about a week there which was filled with hiking sightseeing bike riding and a whole lot of memories one memory sticks out however we were on day three of the trip and like all the other days we decided to go on a hike the trail we went on big creek trail was known for small waterfalls and a swimming hole called the midnight hole the scouts were stoked to be able to swim near the end of the hike and they all brought their swimwear along for it when we got to the hole it was absolutely beautiful the water was so clear but also you couldn't see down once you got about two to three feet in the water i suppose that's why they call it the midnight hole above the main swim spot there was a smaller hole and a small waterfall that connected the two we were all having fun enjoying the cool water in each other's company when we saw another family join us in the swimming hole above ours they were a young foreign family consisting of a mom a dad an older son and a younger son who didn't speak much english me and dad were on the jumping rock when it happened all of a sudden we hear the mom screaming bloody murder as she watches her six year old son float towards the waterfall the older son who was probably in his late teens swam towards him and grabbed his arm right before he went over but the eldest son couldn't hold his grip on the slippery rocks and they both went over head first gasps and screams rang out as they went over the poor mother was on the edge of a rock looking down trying to spot her sons i was yelling at her to get back afraid that she too may fall and land on top of one of her sons the teen popped up first and drifted to the side of the falls dad pointed at one of the other adults to swim over and get him dad and i stood on top of that rock trying to spot the young boy for what seemed like twenty minutes although i know it was no longer than a minute or two before we spotted his head under the dark water my dad did not hesitate to jump in after him there i was on top of that rock waiting for my dad to come out from under the falls with this kid and then i saw them but dad was stuck between the rock and the strong current that was beating him into the rock he finally found the strength to use his legs to push outwards from the rock and get away from the strong current as he carried the boy back to shore our other adults were waiting to perform cpr if needed luckily it was not and everyone walked away fine just a little shaken up of course but they were safe after one of our adults who was also an emt checked out the two boys we went back to the cabin we don't talk much about that day but i know no one will ever forget it as a kid young boys often think of their hero being a comic book character or a famous sports player like tom brady but that day i got to see my dad do something most kids don't save someone's life from that day until the day i die my dad will always be my hero love.
- [49:49]
Danielle
You dad i love that story i mean it's so scary and it's amazing that your dad jumped in in such a dangerous situation to save someone but it's such a sweet story that you're able you were able to see someone do something so beautiful and it was.
- [50:07]
Cassie
Your dad well again i chose this one because it reminded me of something and it's something that i haven't thought about in a really long time and i don't know the details because again it's been a while i have the news article actually that so okay to backtrack my dad also did something like this and he made the newspaper for it when i was really young he was working in connecticut at some sort of he went to johnson and wales for culinary arts and he worked in the food industry after graduation and when i was young and he was working at some sort of resort thing in in connecticut and he was out smoking chain smoking because that's what he did with two other guys and they heard like screams for help and they were the resort was located on the water and they ran over and there were people drowning and he jumped in right away and he helped save people's lives and him and his two co workers and they were all recognized in the paper and my dad was like in the moment he clearly didn't think about it it just was the right thing to do but after he made the papers and he got some recognition for it he took the paper made like a xerox cop of it on the other side of it that was blank he wrote me a message just something about like doing the right thing and whatever and he was like love dad and then he laminated it and gave it to me and i have it at my in my mom's house actually in my old bedroom in a bunch of in a file with a bunch.
- [51:42]
Danielle
Of his stuff that's really cute yeah.
- [51:44]
Cassie
He did that yeah so dads sometimes i know some people don't have great relationships with their dad dads but i loved this story because it reminded me about a story of my dad so thank you for writing in yeah dads.
- [51:59]
Danielle
Are great good dads are great dads.
- [52:02]
Cassie
Put it on a t shirt okay another thing what did you say earlier something about hippos was also pretty profound profound i don't know i don't know.
- [52:13]
Danielle
I said it's better to be accidentally hurt hurt by a hippo than intentionally.
- [52:18]
Cassie
Hurt by a hippo yeah that sounds right and good dads what'd you just.
- [52:24]
Danielle
Say great dads good dads are great.
- [52:26]
Cassie
Dads okay all right let's go share some bonus stories with our outsider community mine is titled on the trail of.
- [52:35]
Danielle
Silver heel and mine is titled that time the big man upstairs took acdc's thunderstruck a little too literally okay all.
- [52:44]
Cassie
Right let's go do it if you want to hear a full rendition of thunderstruck by cassie you can subscribe to us on it's a huge incentive and i'd be shocked if you didn't want to but if you're not an outsider and want to be we have patreon and apple subscription services that you can sign up for we share bonus stories there every trail tales episode and that's what we're about to go do everybody else we love you enjoy the view.
- [53:13]
Danielle
But watch your back bye bye thank.
- [53:16]
Cassie
You for joining us again this week if you have a trail tale of your own you'd like to share you can write to us at npadstoriesmail dot com or visit our website at npadpodcast dot com bonus trail tales and content are available to patreon members and apple subscribers follow the show on instagram tiktok facebook and x at national park park after dark and if you prefer to watch our episodes you can find us on youtube at national park after dark and as always if you enjoy the show please take a moment to rate review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.