This was in my top two weirdest encounters and happened this weekend.
My wife and I were going to take a hike to a little pond near our vacation place that we had never gone to before but had heard about. We drove in on a moderately rough, gated (the gate was open) 4 wheel drive road with my Jeep Wrangler. The sign at the begininng of the road said the road was washed out. This road was rough enough that because I had the trailer hitch in, the hitch had actually scraped the ground a few times, in some of the deeper drainage ditches. Enough that I got out and removed it. After around a mile and a half of this we found the trailhead and parked the jeep because the remaining trail looked more like a hiking trail rather than a driving trail, even for the Jeep. I kidded with my wife telling her I could get the jeep in. We started to walk in to what was going to be a very short walk to the pond. On the way in I noticed fresh vehicle tracks and both dog and human prints. Not long after that I heard voices. Expecting other hikers I rounded the corner to see to my amazement an older man sitting around a very large fire and a 20 foot RV. I told my wife to stay there and I went into their camp and started chatting with both the older man (mid 60s), a younger man (mid 30’s) and a young boy (around 10). The first thing the young man did was to tell the kid to get the trout trap out of the water. He complained that there didn’t seem to be any fish in the pond. I made small talk while I tried to figure out what was going on. He could see my wife and said that she could come in and “they didn’t bite”. I eventually did wave my wife in which was stupid because I still didn’t have a good feeling about this. I initially got the impression that this was a family that was down on their luck and not a “camping trip”. We made small talk and I memorized a couple of their names, descriptions, the RV type and plate number and proceeded on our hike. He had suggested a hike that would have had us in the woods for hours. Even though we departed the camp in the opposite direction that we came in from, we took a route that took us right back to our jeep. To our amazement they had broken camp, in minutes, and were trying to get that RV out of there and they didn’t care how they did it or what kind of damage occurred. At one point they had the rear tire hung up on the ground and the younger guy who was guiding told the older man who was driving that if they tore off the tire he would fix it later. There were more issues with getting the RV out of there than just the tire getting hung up. My wife and I got out of there and I struggled with calling the cops. If they were a family down on their luck I felt bad for them. But, I had also thought that it might not be a grandfather, father, son relationship and I figured a welfare check on the child’s wellbeing was required so I did call the police with all the information I had available. They took my name and phone number and said they would call back with what they found out, but never did.
There is more to this story. My wife, mother in law and youngest son decided to go to WalMart about 3 hours later, a 30 minute trip from where we are located and where we found these people. I swear to god as I am walking in the entrance who do I see walking out but the same guy. Carrying what appears to be 3 jugs of antifreeze and some other stuff. As I am reeling from seeing this and telling my wife that I am sure that is the same guy, I leave the store, through the exit, to look and make sure that this is the same guy an sure enough he goes to the RV that I saw in the woods parked in the parking lot. As I am standing there looking at the RV, his kid walks out (my wife told me he walked out the entrance also) with a brand new fishing pole in his hands and heads towards the RV also. During our small talk the middle aged guy who did almost all of the talking had said that if you had a fishing pole you might have better luck getting fish out of the pond. His trout trap apparently wasn’t working very well. Apparently they got out of that area but I don’t know if they were ever interviewed by the police. I didn’t think that the antifreeze was a good sign and both of them walking out of the entrance didn’t strike me as a good omen either. By the time we left WalMart the RV was gone from the parking lot.
KR
My wife and I were going to take a hike to a little pond near our vacation place that we had never gone to before but had heard about. We drove in on a moderately rough, gated (the gate was open) 4 wheel drive road with my Jeep Wrangler. The sign at the begininng of the road said the road was washed out. This road was rough enough that because I had the trailer hitch in, the hitch had actually scraped the ground a few times, in some of the deeper drainage ditches. Enough that I got out and removed it. After around a mile and a half of this we found the trailhead and parked the jeep because the remaining trail looked more like a hiking trail rather than a driving trail, even for the Jeep. I kidded with my wife telling her I could get the jeep in. We started to walk in to what was going to be a very short walk to the pond. On the way in I noticed fresh vehicle tracks and both dog and human prints. Not long after that I heard voices. Expecting other hikers I rounded the corner to see to my amazement an older man sitting around a very large fire and a 20 foot RV. I told my wife to stay there and I went into their camp and started chatting with both the older man (mid 60s), a younger man (mid 30’s) and a young boy (around 10). The first thing the young man did was to tell the kid to get the trout trap out of the water. He complained that there didn’t seem to be any fish in the pond. I made small talk while I tried to figure out what was going on. He could see my wife and said that she could come in and “they didn’t bite”. I eventually did wave my wife in which was stupid because I still didn’t have a good feeling about this. I initially got the impression that this was a family that was down on their luck and not a “camping trip”. We made small talk and I memorized a couple of their names, descriptions, the RV type and plate number and proceeded on our hike. He had suggested a hike that would have had us in the woods for hours. Even though we departed the camp in the opposite direction that we came in from, we took a route that took us right back to our jeep. To our amazement they had broken camp, in minutes, and were trying to get that RV out of there and they didn’t care how they did it or what kind of damage occurred. At one point they had the rear tire hung up on the ground and the younger guy who was guiding told the older man who was driving that if they tore off the tire he would fix it later. There were more issues with getting the RV out of there than just the tire getting hung up. My wife and I got out of there and I struggled with calling the cops. If they were a family down on their luck I felt bad for them. But, I had also thought that it might not be a grandfather, father, son relationship and I figured a welfare check on the child’s wellbeing was required so I did call the police with all the information I had available. They took my name and phone number and said they would call back with what they found out, but never did.
There is more to this story. My wife, mother in law and youngest son decided to go to WalMart about 3 hours later, a 30 minute trip from where we are located and where we found these people. I swear to god as I am walking in the entrance who do I see walking out but the same guy. Carrying what appears to be 3 jugs of antifreeze and some other stuff. As I am reeling from seeing this and telling my wife that I am sure that is the same guy, I leave the store, through the exit, to look and make sure that this is the same guy an sure enough he goes to the RV that I saw in the woods parked in the parking lot. As I am standing there looking at the RV, his kid walks out (my wife told me he walked out the entrance also) with a brand new fishing pole in his hands and heads towards the RV also. During our small talk the middle aged guy who did almost all of the talking had said that if you had a fishing pole you might have better luck getting fish out of the pond. His trout trap apparently wasn’t working very well. Apparently they got out of that area but I don’t know if they were ever interviewed by the police. I didn’t think that the antifreeze was a good sign and both of them walking out of the entrance didn’t strike me as a good omen either. By the time we left WalMart the RV was gone from the parking lot.
KR
