Many moons ago, I took the family on a trip thru the Smokey Mountains. We stopped somewhere on the Blue Ridge Pkwy at a Mom and Pop type hotel for the night, and they had a 'Scenic Trail' that just basically wound thru the woods above the hotel, not all scenic or that interesting coz I walked it first. All 3 kids wanted to go walk it, so I told them the could, but to "Stay on the trail!". Now when you send 3 kids, 9, 11, and 13 off in the late evening on a 200 yard trail, you expect them back soon.... yeah, right! Well I wanted to give them a scare, so the wife and I set off about 5 minutse after them in the opposite direction, and hid in the bushes. We waited and waited, but no kids. So we went to the halfway point, that just happend to be on the edge of a new home being built on a bluff above a deep, heavily wooded gulley. Going to the edge, we hear 3 voices down in the bottom, playing in the creek, waaaaayyyy off the trail. So intstead of calling my wayward angels, I grab some large chunks of branches and chuck them down the ravine a ways from them and proceed to throw my growls in that direction. The voices all stopped, and my wife and I are trying hard not to laugh..... We figured they would be running up the hill really quick, so we went back to our hiding spot. And we waited.... no kids! About 5 minutes later, we go back to the edge ov the ravine and still hear no voices. So I really do call them by name, and the return yells were 3 terrified kids, shouting for Dad to come save them! Evidently, they were down there looking at large animal tracks by the creek bed when I thru the branches and started growling, so they all high-tailed it up the nearest tree, and spent the next 10 minutes telling each other how much they loved them! I finally talked them out of the tree and back up the ravine, coz I sure wasnt gonna go down and get them! What hugs and tears when they got to us! Then I told them it wasn't a good idea to leave the trail, huh? That was when I told them it was me... and THEN THE REAL SCREAMING STARTED!!!
Sure makes for fun tales now that they are all in their 20s!
later, Tom.
