1985: Camping With Steven

By the time John turned 9, he was already quite an experienced camper. However, up until this point, all the camping trips he'd been on had also included the whole family. So I offered to take him and his friend, Steven, on a backpacking trip in the Shenandoah National Park.

We saw one deer during the day, but that night, we heard the thrashing of hooves outside the tent and jumped up to find a whole herd of them in our camp. Of course the boys wanted to feed them, and opened up a couple of granola bars. Instantly, the deers started crowding us and the boys suddenly realized how big they were. Panicky, they threw the bars into the woods and we escaped back into the tent while the deer tore after the prizes. Not that the tent would have protected us from the animals if they'd meant us harm; they just really wanted those granola bars!