Eating Rat and Seeing Soldiers

As we prepare to backpack I started to remember last years trip. The trip that I haven't journaled about... I do try to keep up with the kids memories but yesterday as Cory and I laughed about the AT memories I noticed how important these memories will be for us. Last year was the year we ate rat (sorta) and saw the soldiers. 

During our first night a group of college students studying ecology with their professor joined us at the shelter. The students were sleeping in on the top floor so I offered the lonely professor a "breakfast wrap." Later the students confessed they overhead us and thought I was hard core. They thought I had caught, cooked and served a "breakfast rat"... Guess they thought the professor was hard core because he sure enjoyed it!!! 

First night in the woods we are awakened by the sound of leaves rustling. First thought "crap, we didn't hang our food on the bear wires", second thought "crap, our food is in our tent", third thought "crap...Cory needs to get up and check this out." As we unzipped our tent the moon was bright and amazingly beautiful! Silhouetted by the light were soldiers. They are all lined up, no lamps, just the moon, marching through. There must have been 2 squads of about 30 that night. A couple soldiers spoke out to people in the shelter , not to worry. I was grateful that we had seen them and knew they were training here because hours later breaking through the quiet night came machine gun fire 😳.