Little did these dusty travelers know, two W.A. Bean red snapper hot dogs saved them from sleeping in the middle of the well-haunted Black’s Woods, out on old Route 182. Bear with me; I can explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grilled hotdogs late in the afternoon, believing it best to clean out the fridge before leaving the camp in the woods for a few days. I swept, put away some towels I’d brought from home, and stowed some outside camp accouterments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In typical evening travels, I leave the camp <\/a>around six, timing my trip to Bangor so that I come scooting into my driveway just before dark. En route home, I usually swing through Milbridge, Maine, to grab some supper, but I was full of hot dogs\u2014 red snappers, a Maine staple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I contemplated bypassing the shortcut to Ellsworth\u2014Rt. 182\u2014but remembered I had to get to Sammy’s house to feed his cat, Mr. Goody. I determined it was worth the picturesque ride, saving maybe ten miles, give or take. It ended up taking longer, but it was meant to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rolling along to the 70s on 7, Paul McCartney and Wings were blasting, Ellie was sleeping, and I was perusing the random thoughts that fill the head of a man who is a better driver when daydreaming. As I passed an unfortunate spot in the road, I saw the green Ford van stuck up to the rear axle in soft gravel. It’s on a corner and a dangerous grade, and I recalled almost being stuck there one time in the past when I stopped to answer the call that nature makes to all of us at one time or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I saw a young lad walking out of the woods toting a three-foot section of rotten log, probably to add traction, and my mind calculated that he was pretty much screwed. When I found a safe stretch, I turned back to reassess what I’d viewed at fifty miles per hour. It looked worse the slower I drove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stopped across the road and hollered that I was willing to give them a tug if that’s what they wanted. The young lady and young man seemed delighted about the prospect. I drove back to a turnaround, got stuck while trying to pull back up on the road, slapped the truck into four-wheel drive, and arrived back at ground zero about two minutes after first contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt confident that I could get them out, but informed them that I couldn’t guarantee a no-damage situation since the van was truly up to the rear bumper in soft Maine shoulder gravel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie and Lily were from the Show-Me-State; their license plate verified this: St. Louis, to be more specific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were traveling the country, living in a van\u2014currently a trend. I could tell that they were not the “slap everything on the Internet” types with a penchant for acting as if they were roughing it\u2014these two were seat-of-the-pants kind of kids, living the dream that I once had, so helping them out of a three hundred dollar tow bill was first on my list of Show-thems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without getting into the weeds, I gathered up a few tow straps. We hooked into a sturdy spot on the van, and Old Blue pulled while Ellie barked her head off at the spinning, growling, and thumping that we had to put the Ford through to pluck out the other Ford from a whole night of off-kilter, off-road camping. There is no replacement for displacement and the imprudent treachery and mayhem exacted on loose soil by all-terrain tires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should have told the kids we were centered precisely inside the zone haunted by Catherine Black of Catherine’s Hill fame. Her ghost waves down travelers, asking for help. The report is that she asks her prey for a ride to Ellsworth or Machias. Some say you’ll never reach your destination if you give her a ride. She has a face that is both beautiful and horrifying, but I do, too, depending on how the sunset strikes my unusually large nose. However, neither Lily nor Charlie mentioned it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Never look a gift horse in the nose” 1 Timothy 7:22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a harder extrication than expected, but I love a challenge. The three of us chatted for a few minutes after the dust settled, but mostly, they shared that they were genuinely thankful for the tow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie asked if there was anything they could do for me. I asked him for a handshake, and he agreed to my terms. He offered the age-old payment method of a couple of cold beers from the van’s ice chest, but they would need them more than me, maybe to take the edge off if they ran into Catherine. I am an extractor, not an exorcist\u2014but they already knew that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I gave them a tip on a good camping spot where they’d not be bothered by ghosts, and we went our separate ways. But only after we documented our time together with a selfie for the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lily is depicted showing you the tow strap I was lucky to have on board. Again, she’s from Missouri\u2014St. Louis, to be exact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Jagged Edge of America, I remain,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Thanks for all the support for my writing through the BuyMeACoffee app\/banner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Little did these dusty travelers know, two W.A. Bean red snapper hot dogs saved them from sleeping in the middle of the well-haunted Black’s Woods, out on old Route 182. Bear with me; I can explain. I grilled hotdogs late in the afternoon, believing it best to clean out the fridge before leaving the camp…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,19],"tags":[132,131],"class_list":["post-77344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-home-posts","tag-roadtrips","tag-van-life"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}