Narrative essay on a nature walk experience

Camping With Creatures

I am not an outdoor enthusiast. I enjoy the outdoors once it has been civilized: carefully cultivated lawns, man-made lakes, and walking trails are essential components of the majority of my nature experiences. Even my hearty outdoor experiences, such as a vacation trip to a working cattle ranch, were cultivated in a way to keep me separate from nature in a very specific manner. I had no problems with this separation and could have lived that way my entire life without any complaints. However, I have a cousin who is an ardent outdoor enthusiast. His hobbies are camping, hiking, hunting, and rock climbing; he does some small-scale survivalist challenges. One summer, when I went to visit his family, he convinced me to go camping. He described the wonders of nature in glorious detail: the beauty of sunrise, the darkness that was not possible in the city or the suburbs, and the fresh air. What he failed to describe where the creatures, but creatures became the defining point of our camping experience.

My cousin's family lives in a bedroom community near Houston, Texas. For our camping experience, he decided to begin with a small state park in the area, Brazos Bend State Park, because it had full facilities for use for campers. He packed up his camping gear, and, along with a few of his friends, we drove out there late one Tuesday afternoon. One thing about Houston, Texas in the summer is that it is hot in a way that defies imagination. Even in the evenings, the temperatures are often in the uppers 80s or lower 90s, and the humidity is so high that the heat feels like an oppressive blanket. Stepping into a tent does nothing but increase the heat and the feeling of humidity, so we spent much of our time sitting outside of our tents near a fire. The fire, as one might imagine, did not decrease the feeling of warmth, so I was soaked with sweat and already feeling agitated and irritable when I had my first encounter with a creature.

Brazos Bend State Park is known for its wildlife. It is a famous natural habitat for alligators and it also a popular site for birdwatchers. After we set up camp, we hiked near our campsite and I saw turtles, birds, butterflies, alligators, ducks, and a large water mammal that none of us were able to identify. These were the creatures that I wanted to see, and, at that time, walking around the park in the fading sun before twilight, I had the feeling that camping would be a tolerable experience. However, when the sun finally set, I became aware that the large creatures I had seen in the daylight were nothing compared to the small creatures that besieged us that night.

The first wave of creatures that came to us was the mosquitos. I am not sure whether they were drawn by the campfire, by the smell of s'mores as the marshmallow melted into the chocolate, or by the smell of a bunch of teenagers who had not showered after a long hike, but they came for us like little kids at the chocolate fountain at Golden Corral. My cousin was against the use of DEET to repel mosquitos. According to him, "incorrect application can lead to health issues such as skin irritation, disorientation, dizziness, and, in extreme cases, seizures or death" (Ronca, p.1). I was fairly certain that if any of us were too incompetent to figure out how to apply bug spray, we probably should not be camping, but I followed his expert advice. The citronella-based spray he brought seemed to work wonders for him, but the mosquitos made a feast of me. Finally, frustrated, I crawled into the tent and zipped myself inside the mesh netting, hoping to keep some of my blood inside my body.

I did not fall asleep easily. The nighttime sounds that my cousin had described as being so peaceful sounded threatening and alien to me as I tried to drift asleep. However, I eventually fell into a deep, if somewhat fitful sleep. I woke up because I felt like I was choking, and I bolted upright, trying to get whatever was blocking my airway out of my mouth. To my dismay, I eventually managed to spit out a cockroach. I am by no means an entomologist, but I believe it was an American cockroach, because of its size and the fact that it flew. I realize that my disgust may have amplified the size of the roach in my memory, but I remember the bug as being about two inches long, and American cockroaches are "1 1/2 to 2 inches long" (Brown, Merchant, and Gold). More significantly, they can fly. That bug sure did. Once I got it out of my mouth, it flew madly around the tent as I hopped, screamed, and gagged, trying desperately to get it out of the tent.

Apparently, the outdoor air did wonders for my cousin, as he said it would, because my screaming and flailing failed to wake him from his slumber. However, one of his friends, who was sleeping in a different tent, came to check on me. By this time, I had managed to get out of the tent and was dry-heaving outside of the tent, both hoping that I could throw up and hoping that I would not throw up. I explained what had happened, and she tried to be sympathetic to me, but my response must have seemed pretty comical, because she ended up laughing about it.