An Encounter with Big Foot?

When my son Brian was 10 months old, we decided to take our vacation in our newly acquired folding tent trailer that I bought from a next door neighbor. We had always liked the coast so we headed for Patrick’s Point State Park north of Eureka. When we got there, it was fogged in and a park ranger suggested Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park a few miles north. It was in a deep canyon and when we finally got there, there was a nice circular level campground and we set up the tent trailer for the first time. We were the only campers which was nice. It had two folding queen sized platforms on each side of an aisle. We set up our sleeping bag on one side and little Brian, in his bag, had the whole queen sized bed to himself.

Later, about dinner time, we heard the roar of some motorcycles coming down and to our dismay, a bunch of “Hell’s Angels” type, complete with leather jackets with painted pictures on the back, settled in across the road from us and started getting drunk. We almost decided to pack up and move on when a county sheriff’s car came by, slowed down and looked at the “Angels”. He went around the campground a few times, slowing down each time and the “Angels” finally got the idea and left. The sheriff came back and told us we would be O.K. now.

We went to bed and were awakened once in a while by loud screeches and breaking of twigs. About 2 AM, I heard a noise and looked toward Brian and he was gone! I rushed out the door and found him hanging by one hand with his thumb in his mouth and feet 10” from the ground. He had fallen out between the canvas top and plywood platform.

In the morning, we had breakfast and, while Lorrie was getting ready to leave, I decided to take him, in a Gerry Carrier backpack around a circular trail through the woods varying from 30’ to 50’ above the campground floor.

I began hearing twigs crackling and figured it was a deer until Brian all of a sudden said “Hi” which made my hair stand on end. I started whistling and walking faster. After covering a 100’ or so, I heard Brian say “Bye, Bye”!

I don’t even want to think about what it was that he saw and we finished packing and got out of there.