My Two Writing Teachers colleagues and I are hosting the 16th Annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge, in which teachers from around the world participate by posting a story per day.
This year, the SOLSC gives me a chance to record memories of our little dog, Indie, who died in January. I want to write these down while they are still fresh, so that my family and can read them later and remember not only Indie, but little slices of life across the years.
It must have been about 8 or 9 years ago years ago, so I guess it was 2005 or 2006 (wow, time flies). Our little dog, Indie, was only 2 years old.
On my 30th birthday, Brinton gave me camping gear, in anticipation of someday moving home to Vermont. As part of my birthday gift, we planned a two week adventure hiking the Long Trail. We packed up all our brand new new gear and our little dog, Indie, and headed off into the wilderness.
The only problem was that we had not checked the weather very carefully. iPhones hadn’t been invented yet, and the weather forcast had changed since we had checked that morning.
As we approached the rocky, exposed summit of Mt. Mansfield the sky suddenly turned dark. VERY dark. The wind picked up and we could hear thunder rolling in the distance. Indie started to whine and pace protective little circles around us instead of bounding straight up the trail. We were too far up the exposed part of the trail to turn back in time to beat the storm, but we knew there was a bypass near the peak that headed down the leeward side of the peak — a safer place to be.
It started to rain. At first just heavy drips, and then it picked up and we could hear thunder getting closer. Indie started to go right under our feet, not to protect us, but because he was scared. We were pretty close to the summit Mt. Mansfield —-literally the highest point in the entire state and the most dangerous place we could possibly be when lightning strikes. We held Indie in our arms, and started to jog instead of walk.
It started to pour, hard, and the thunder was upon us just as we reached the summit. We sprinted across the bare, rocky trail and dove into the a tree-lined bypass trail and thankfully reached the tree line a few moments later. We continued running on the slippery trail not knowing what to do. We crouched under a tree, with Indie squirming and barking in Brinton’s arms. After what seemed like forever, the storm began to slow down. We scrambled in the heavy rain to find the flattest little patch of ground we could find and pitched our tent as quickly as we could. It was flopping in the wind, and staked down on top of bumpy roots and small rocks, but we ducked into it, grateful to be out of the rain.
As if the storm weren’t enough to worry about, I immediately began to worry about animals. A few minutes later, I made Brinton go back out to string our food from a small tree, far away from the tent — to keep us safe from bears, wildcats, and other animals looking for food. Then, finally, we crawled into our sleeping bags to warm up. Soaking wet, Brinton pulled poor Indie into his sleeping bag and held him close.
Eventually, the rain stopped and I think we all fell asleep. I swear I heard an animal’s heavy footsteps in the night. But… we woke up in the morning to bright sunshine, and continued on our trek.