Day 262
It was Sunday morning and we had to check out at the ranger station by 11 am. The weather had finally cleared up, the sky was blue, there was a gentle breeze. The sun was warming the air and the day held promise of what I had hoped for when we had arrived on Friday. By 10 am the electricity came back on, marked by the lone light bulb giving off a brilliant light. We turned everything off as we were instructed to do when leaving and I was taking the trash to the garbage can out by the pond.
There in the water was the tree branch bobbing up and down, only the surface of the water was still. As I placed the trash with our leftovers in the receptacle, I saw the branch move around so the red spot was facing me. Strange. Then the branch briefly ducked under the surface, only to rise in another spot closer to land and me.
The branch silently moved closer to the edge of the pond. A moment later I realized, what I had mistaken for a tree branch was actually the head of a turtle. An enormous turtle. As I said before the head was a good 5 inches across, and the two spots, one red and one milky blue, were it's eyes. As it rose out of the water and walked up on the land, I could see the full breadth of the thing. It looked to be the size of a sea tortoise, the kind that live a hundred years and children ride at zoos.
I have already told you his eyes were hideous. There were deep gouges in the shell, from what I can only surmise, was the propeller of some pleasure craft driving over him. Quite possibly more than once. He looked me full in the face with his milky blue eye, and the hair on my neck stood at attention. At first I assumed the eye to be blind, or at least diminished to some extent, but his sight was as sharp as any turtle, maybe more so. For when I moved, he moved right along with me and there was no escape from that eye.
As I stared helplessly, into the depth of the dead eye, I began to swoon, as if hypnotized. I found myself frozen to the spot as the beastie moved closer to me. If Irene had not chosen that exact moment to emerge from the cabin complaining of the cold, I shudder still to this day, to think of what might have happened to me. The snapper, for it was a snapping turtle, turned it's attention on Irene. I tried to call to her to run and lock herself in the cabin, but I could not speak, still recovering from the mesmerizing spell cast by the evil eye. The eye was now cast upon Irene.
I thought I must stop this vile creature from harming my lady fair. Well, not that fair, it was first thing in the morning and we had been camping without a shower and I'm sure I wasn't smelling my best either. Anyway, the scent of unwashed bodies was probably what attracted the turtle in the first place. But I digress.
Irene, without batting an eye, picked up a log and threw it. The wood fell short but did cause the beast to hiss and take several steps back toward the pond.
We quickly grabbed our things from the cabin and fired up the car. I didn't even bother turning around as I backed down the path to the road, and away from danger. When we stopped at the gate, we had a good laugh about the turtle. I asked Irene for the key to the gate lock. The look on her face told me she had left the keys in the cabin. One of us had to go back.
I reminded her it was her turn to unlock the gate and she would need the key to do so. With another look from Irene, I quickly realized I would be going back, I'd rather face the turtle. When I returned to the cabin, the turtle was nowhere in sight. I grabbed the keys and the white box of stale doughnuts we had forgotten to throw in the trash and returned to the car. When I stepped out the door, the turtle was there and moving toward me. It is amazing how fast one of these things can move. I dropped the doughnuts and started to run. To hell with the clean up deposit, I wasn't going back to pick up doughnuts.
We made it to the ranger station and returned the keys, confessing I had dropped a box of doughnuts when I left. The ranger said that that was OK. Being of a chatty nature, as some rangers are, he told us about a snapping turtle named Ol' Henry. Seems the old fellow likes to swim up to the cabin looking for food. Some folks go to the Cidar Mill and by the old, stale doughnuts in the white box and feed them to Ol' Henry. Sense of smell is all he has left, blind in one eye and can't see out the other. So he follows his nose to the campers and begs for doughnuts. Irene and I thought it was a funny story.
We never went camping at Mt. Holly again.
Until tomorrow,
Ken
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