A few years ago, I went on a camping road trip that, at the time, was miserable, uncomfortable, and even scary. Throughout it all, my friend Kamaryn insisted that the worst nights make for the best stories. Despite my complaints, she was right!
 
Here are the worst nights and the best stories:
 
The Blonde Field.
This night’s campsite was relatively close to a “major” road somewhere in New Mexico. It was probably a highway but there was very little traffic on it, so our site still felt remote. We arrived in the sunny afternoon and after a lot of hiking the previous days, we were happy to lounge and hammock and read. The clearing we were in was full of this long, straw-colored tufts of grass, which happened to look like someone had buried the heads of a thousand blonde people and just left the hair to poke out. Morbid, I know, but it’s the best way to give a visual and set the scene.
 
Just before sunset, a white van pulled into the campsite, and let five inmates in handcuffs and orange jumpsuits out to use the camp latrine. While they were completely nonthreatening and did not even acknowledge us, we became very aware that we were four females, camping alone, camping very close to a road that would make it very easy for anyone to drive up and bother us.
 
Enter nightfall. Our tent was set up on the blonde grass, and just as I started to doze off, I heard footsteps. Something, or someone, was circling our tent, crunching through the dry, blonde grass. I get scared easily, so I was quietly losing my mind and trying to play it cool because the other girls were already fast asleep. After my resolve weakened though, I whimpered, “did you hear that?”
 
Kamaryn did hear that.
 
We whispered about what to do and talked about worst-case scenarios. She told me to go check out the sound and I remember asking, “but what if it’s scary?”— I was totally terrified. I thought maybe it was a wolf, or worse, a human man. I couldn’t do it. I made her take the flashlight and walk a lap around the tent, but she didn’t see anything. When she got back in, we tried to fall asleep, but we were shaking so badly we couldn’t. We said it was because of the cold, but by morning we admitted it was fear. In the light of day, we laughed about how scared we were and decided it must have been the wind, until my shoe, in the middle of the tent, spontaneously popped up an inch off the ground. We shrieked and dissolved into laughter once we realized that the terrors of the night were just field mice who woke up to a tent over their homes.
 
The Dunes.
We went to the White Sands National Park in New Mexico and we felt like we had been transported to the Sahara. There are remote campsites in the dunes, and the trail leading to them is marked with reflective posts. It’s easy enough to follow in the daylight, but the entire camp locks down between sundown and 7 am to keep people from leaving their campsites and trying to get back to their cars. It’s remarkably easy to get lost in the dunes.
 
Undeterred, we gathered up all of our gear and trekked over a mile across the dunes to get to our campsite while the sun was still high. We were happy to watch the sunset and looked forward to staying up in the tent chatting and playing cards. We had no idea how miserable this night would get.
 
After the sun set, we were sharing dinner in the tent when our tent, large enough for four people, collapsed on us. The nightly wind had picked up and was beating the tent down, and there was nothing we could do to support it or keep it from flapping in the wind. I was convinced that we would just have to find a way to sleep in the collapsed tent, but my companions knew that was not an option. We rolled our sleeping bags and packed up, and by the light of the stars, we began the forbidden trek back to our car. The wind was strong and was blowing up sand, making it difficult to see the reflective trail markers, but we carefully made it back over the dunes to the parking lot. Our car was built for camping, so all the seats laid down flat and it was just big enough for the four of us to squeeze inside and lay down. My legs were wrapped around the steering wheel as I watched the moon slide across the sky, and I begged it to hurry. I was so uncomfortable and tired and miserable—I hate sleeping in cars. I slept very little that night, watching the moon and waiting for the sun to rise. But after the longest night of my life, the sun rose, and the clock struck 7. I sat up, unzipped the bottom of my sleeping bag, and drove us to the nearest IHOP.
 
What started as the worst nights of our trip quickly became our fondest memories and our favorite stories to tell. I know my complaints of grad school and 15-hour days will become fond memories soon, too.

– Kalen Johnson

Kalen is a doctoral candidate in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.