Our first night camping was on Williams Island which is in the center of the Tennessee River! After about 11 hours of paddling, we were very ready for a break! After we found the small dock for the island, we set up camp and cooked dinner! We had a wonderful picnic steak dinner on the dock watching the river! We were the only people on the island as far as we know and we took a walk to explore! It was a little creepy, but also incredibly cool! After dinner, we took a swim in the river and sat around the campfire for a while! Even though we could see the massive Baylor School across the river, (More on that later!) it still seemed like we were alone in the world!
The night was beautiful and we were settled into our little tent! This is when one of the wildest events of our trip occurred! About 4:15am, something ran into the side of our tent about five inches away from Phyllis’ face! She sat bolt upright and I was jerked out of my exhausted sleep! At first, I thought she might have been dreaming, but then I heard whatever it was snort! We shined our flashlights, but couldn’t find anything so we figured whatever it was would go away! We laid back down, but when you realize that all you have between you and whatever is out there is a paper thin piece of nylon, it is a little hard to go back to sleep! As we lay back down, however, we heard panting and then another snort and something moving around! We were both sitting up again! I aimed the flashlight out at the woods and caught an eye shinning! It just stood there! We could hear movement and more snorting! It was circling around us!! After a while, whatever it was it finally went away! Phyllis was up for the night, but I managed to get a little more sleep! Our best guess is that it was a deer; either a buck chasing a doe or a coyote chasing the deer! It must have hit the tent rod and stumbled or something! The weird thing is that it didn’t leave when we yelled at it or when we shinned our lights! Before I went back to sleep, about every five minutes I called out, “Go on, get out of here!” Phyllis jumped up every time I yelled, which was kind of funny! I guess I should have gotten up and confronted the beast, but I decided if it wanted a fight, I’d let it come to me! I knew one thing though: no matter what it was, I didn’t have to out run it, just out run Phyllis! I knew I could do that! (I wouldn’t really leave her behind!) Luckily, it must have had better things to do!
When we got up, nothing was disturbed, including our food, and the ground was too dry to find any prints! After a good, hot breakfast, we packed everything up and headed out for the next leg of our journey! We pushed off from the dock and I imagined I could see that eye looking out from behind a tree! I could hear whatever it was, thinking, “Yeah, that’s right! Just move along! This is my island!” It was a beautiful, amazing place I hope to explore more in the future! Maybe a little more during daylight hours!
