Stagg Vs. New Mexico Or Four Seasons In One Day

Okay. My theory on when it all fell apart has something to do with eye contact.

While I was setting up the tent I saw a few kids and a couple in a camper. I waved to a woman camper who looked a little like me and we smiled Hi! Stagg was very busy finding wood for our camp fire and to cook. When we started the fire it became quite a bonfire and was a little intimidating even reaching for the trees and we got a little unnerved. But then cooked up our burgers and ate them so quickly because we were starving and the weather was quickly growing cold. It had been blazing hot all day while I drive north from the Carlsbad Caverns. I mean skin cancer hot. Stagg and I have the ridiculous burn/tans from driving through tropics and dessert for weeks. But then in the New Mexico mountains the temperature just stopes. We had to get inside the tent and under our blankets pronto. Yes I said blankets. We don't actually have sleeping bags. Just three huge blankets. Bit once in the tent we could feel it warm up and it would be fine. About five minutes after lying down we hear really wild loud running and a guy yells "Lander are you still alive!?" then weird breathing and weird snorts or laughter. Hmmm. I think that it might be the two teens I saw earlier in faux military clothes and boots. I close my eyes. Then the wind comes up so inyensely it begins pushing the tent around. The tent is acting like a sailboat in high seas. The walls of the tent actually bend and touch my face. I pop open my eyes and hear people running. I hear animals outside under the trees. And there are silhouettes of people walking Right Outside Of Our Tent!!!! Oh shit. I can feel adrenaline jab into my chest and arms. Lay still. Don't move. Hopefully Staggs under the blankets and can't see this. One beat. Two beats. Stagg sits up. I see him in the dark and he looks as freaked out as I feel. He makes a signal to be silent. I nod. We hear animals or footsteps through the trees beside our campsite. We hear running on gravel. Stagg whispers " I'm going outside" I say "No". We lie down. I start to analyze the shadows. One set of shadows looks like a Crouching animal the others like humans. Okay think about this. The shadows look like they are outside the tent. I unzipped the tent afraid. It's people using the comfort station but their shadows are cast yards away on our tent. Okay. The crouching animals are bushes. Whew. The wind continues to blow our tent sideways and Stagg has had it. We go outside and try to see people running. I try to explain the shadows the wind. Stagg is wired. I am not convincing. We hide in dark blankets watching the teens run through the woods and visit each others tents. Not reassuring to Stagg. We hide and watch for at least an hour getting colder and colder and I realize I have to sleep if I'm going to drive tomorrow. They can kill me in my sleep. Stagg won't go back inside the tent. I force myself to hide under a blanket despite all the creepiness. I am exhausted. I sleep for 2 or 3 hours. When I wake next with the whole tent moved several feet by the wind I crawl out and Stagg is still wrapped in a dark blanket performing covert operations on our camp. I drag him into the tent. He is frozen and completely freaked put. He warms up and then I realize what we have to do. It's 4 in the morning we grab a couple of our blankets and lock ourselves into the womens washroom with my cell phone and the lights on bright until the sun comes up. No more Blair witch project. We got to get a grip. We warm up. The phone recharges. We go outside looking at the sky. The second I see a glow I hauled down the tent and crunched it up stuffed into the back sets and we tore off down the mountain. The radio came in and we found classic rock station we could sing along to till we found gas and coffee.

I don't know how but I managed to drive a couple hours exhausted till we found a little motel and we checked in and went to sleep at noon. We still hear the haunting sounds of banjos....