National Park After Dark - Trail Tales 5

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

Today’s stories include bones in the desert, how mountain biking solved a cold case, witnessing a volcanic eruption, a run in with a serial killers long lost friend, disembodied chants, an unwelcome nightly visitor and signs from the universe. All tales shared with consent.We love our National Parks and we know you do too but when you're out there, remember to enjoy the view but watch your back. Please take a moment to rate and subscribe from wherever you’re listening to NPAD! Become part of our Outsider family on Patreon to gain access to ad-free episode, bonus content and more. Follow our socials Instagram, Facebook , and Twitter. To share a Trail Tale, suggest a story, access merch and browse our book recommendations - head over to our website.  Thank you so much to our partners, check them out!   Peloton: Keep your workouts fresh with PelotonBest Fiends: Download for free today on the App Store or Google Play Genucel: Receive 60% off Genucel’s Most Popular Package and free shipping with code NPAD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Limitless. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally. Breathe. Girl, winter is so last season. And now spring's got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders.

That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope? It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Hey everybody, welcome back to National Park After Dark, another trail-tale episode.

We are so happy to be doing these regularly, and when we put out the call, you answered. Sure did. We are so stoked at how many of you guys responded when we said, please send in your trail tales. We have been getting non-stop emails of so many of your cool stories, and it's one of our favorite things to do is to hear your real stories out on the trail. So we just wanted to say a big thank you for sending them in. have a lot of ammunition now for a lot of trail tales to come and we're excited to get more. And if you don't hear your trail tale today, it doesn't mean it's not going to be told. It's just we've gotten so many that we're just picking through them right now. But please feel free to keep sending them in to our email and PAD Stories at gmail.com.

They don't have to be in national parks. They don't even have to really be in a park as long as it's kind of outdoors or something along the lines of our show. If it's a story that you think we might want to hear, definitely tell it. And it doesn't even just have to be morbid. We would love to hear any like trail magic you've experienced on the trail or if you've had any really lovely inspiring experiences on the trail. We want to just hear these episodes are for you guys.

I mean, these episodes are you. So we want it to encompass everything that you're about on the trails and everything that hiking means to you and your stories and just write them in. to tell them, we want to read them. Well, with that being said, my first one is not trail magic. I know. But I'm excited to tell it nonetheless. So can I go first? Yes, of course. Tell me. The subject of this one is Ribs in the Desert. My name is Mike. I'm from New Jersey and I'm a huge fan. A friend of mine just turned me onto your podcast and because I have about an hour commute each way to and from work, I've been flying through your episodes. It'll be sad when I don't have

one of your podcasts to listen to pretty much every day. Husband and I are avid hikers, and in fact, on a hiking trip to Mount Shasta this summer, which is even more interesting for me now, because you briefly mentioned some sort of creature that lives there in a recent episode, I know the first Sasquatch video was filmed just north of there. I will be on the lookout, though I usually am squatching every time I leave the house. Mike, a man after my own heart. So here's my creepy story. It's very short, but creepy nonetheless. My sister used to live in a place called Coyote, New Mexico, and we decided to go visit her. This was at least 10 years ago, before we had cell phones. We flew into Albuquerque and had to drive for over two hours to get to her place. The road to her house took us through Valles Caldera's National Preserve. We had to stop to relieve ourselves on the side of the road, and I went behind a bush to take

care of business. I saw a big green trash bag that was slightly ripped open and with some bones sticking out. I mentioned it to my husband, who was a little bit of my husband, who was a little bit of also took a look. We swear that what we were looking at was a ribcage of a young person, maybe around seven to ten years old. We knew that it couldn't be an animal. Who would put an animal in a garbage bag and just throw it out into the desert? We were really freaked out since this was the middle of absolutely nowhere, just desert and shrubs. We wanted to take the remains somewhere, but there was no way we could do that. We got back into the car and drove and drove and drove with no other cars or

buildings in sight. Finally, we stopped at a building in the middle of nowhere and there was a police car parked outside of it. We drove up to it and got out to get help, but the door was locked. We walked around the building, looking through the windows, knocking on the back door, etc., but no answer. At this point, we were thinking, this is the part of the movie where we get killed, right? We were thinking Texas chainsaw massacre or something of that sort. We got back into the car and then just drove to my sister's house. We told them the story, and they just said, oh, they're always finding bones in the desert.

It seemed like it was nothing out of the ordinary for them. For us, it was creepy as fuck. Okay, well, they say AF. Sorry. Sorry, persuading. And also, so sad to think that a young person ended their life as a bag of bones in the desert. That's the story.

Thanks for your podcast. I'm a huge fan. And as many creepy Bigfoot stories you can, can tell the better take care, Mike. That is creepy AF. That is creepy AF. And I love how he's like, oh, that's my story. There's no conclusion. Yeah, what? Where the bones? It's like no one seemed to care. That is really creepy, though. If you come across a bag of bones out in the desert, that's, that's pretty scary. That's pretty serious and scary. And I get the fact of not wanting to move them, whether or not you had the ability to, like, you don't want to disturb anything, especially if it is like a

crime scene. Yeah, like tamper with evidence kind of thing. But it's like, they're just like, all right, later days. All right, never mind. Oh, my goodness. Well, thanks, Mike. I will keep my eyes open for any more Sasquatch stories to share. Okay, we'll go into my next one, which is kind of has a little, it's a little similar to what you just read,

but also very different. This one is titled, The Time I Accidentally Solved a Cold Case. I was so excited when you said our trail tale stories don't necessarily need to be in a park because my weirdest and most incredible experience in the outdoors happened in a different public space in New Mexico. Oh, we're both in New Mexico. Yeah, it's super similar. In 2007, I was mountain biking alone in a single track in the middle of the state.

I was still new to the area and not great at following the faint trail in the state. the desert. At one point, it was obvious I was no longer on the actual trail. I decided to take a dry arroyo up that eventually intersected again with the trail. A mesquite bush stood in the way. I went to the left of it instead and there I found a wallet sitting on the ground. I picked it up. I remember it being pretty hefty. There was an ID inside and everything was legible. I thought that the person who lost it might get a kick out of getting it back, so I put it in my backpack and for whatever reason marked the spot on my GPS. I continued with the ride until I began running out of water. Turning back, I ended up accidentally crossing briefly onto government land. This was kind of a big deal,

as the land was used in explosive testing, so when I passed the checkpoint, the guards indicated that I had to stop and get questioned. When they determined I was just a dirtbag mountain biker, uninterested in government sabotage, I mentioned how I'd found a wallet and the owner might like it back. The guard took it and he said he'd give it to the local police. So the next day, as I was getting ready to teach at the local university, I got a call from the local police. They said I needed to lead them out to where I found the wallet with no explanation as to why. I said, sure, when. I have class to teach this morning, but maybe after or tomorrow.

The officer said sternly, no, now. This can't wait. So, without much of a choice, I went to. the trailhead parking area where I recalled a cadre of police officers were waiting there for me. I led them out to the waypoint. I think there had to have been about a dozen of them. I still had no idea what this was about, and no one would explain. At the waypoint, I told them that this was the place, and they all fanned out. I hiked up the bank and sat down watching them. It wasn't long before they all regrouped looking at the ground in one spot. They had found bones.

the likely remains of an individual who had been missing for almost 10 years to the month. Wow. This was a while ago, but I remember that there were tears. Authorities were convinced this individual went into the desert, but no one on foot, no scent dogs, no aerial searches with thermal infrared could find him. He had just disappeared until now. The officers who worked at the same station 10 years before said that they could finally be at ease. His family invited me to his memorial, which they could finally really hold.

We stay in contact still 15 years later, every year sending Christmas cards to each other, and his mother is even Facebook friends with me. You two say, watch your back. But I also say, watch where you step. You never know what you'll find or whose lives you'll change. Isn't that wild? Wow. What a coincidence that this person just happened to blindly stumble across this

and be a good Samaritan to bring the wallet back? First of all, what are the chances? Yeah. And also, it's just crazy how they mentioned there was a huge search effort and no one could find this person. And then 10 years later, she just stumbles essentially upon them and brings closure to a family that has been searching for answers for so long. Like, what are the chances that on that same day where she had the wallet, she would get caught by authorities randomly.

Yeah. And be like, oh, here's the wallet. Can you give this to someone? And then her be contacted. Wow. That's an incredible story. So yeah, I guess watch her step too. That's a great little ending antidote.

Yeah. Sometimes you're just in the right spot at the right time and you're meant to be there and meant to find things. That's really true. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice.

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her dog and I spent the afternoon at Fort Mott Park, a small state park on the Delaware River in New Jersey. It was kind of windy that day and not many people were there. We had brought lunch and had a small picnic on top of the fort when we noticed another person walking towards the cemetery. We thought nothing of it because it is a historical place and many field trips and researchers take the hike back to the cemetery, which is a 10-minute walk behind the fort through the marsh and the woods. We took a walk down to the ferry dock to let the dog play in the water for a bit when we turned around and saw the guy walking towards us from the cemetery. Something immediately gave me the chills. He walked up to us and my friend's dog immediately was a tentative to us,

not barking or growling, but staying close. The man introduced himself saying he used to live in the area and that he was in town for the weekend and wanted to stop by to walk the park for memory. He started talking about the area, and my friend and I were as friendly as possible when someone creeps you out. He looked towards the fort and asked a question about an old watchtower. He said in his teens, his friends used to sneak up there and drink and smoke, but the fort has seen better days and is pretty much falling apart now. He didn't mention any friends by name, except for one. He referred to his dear friend Andrew and then asked when we were born.

For reference, my friend and I weren't born until the end of 1997. The man said he had taken walk back to the cemetery to relive the steps of his friend. I had stepped in front of my friend a little ready to fight when the man asked us if we had ever heard of Andrew Koonanin. Yes, that, Andrew, that in July of 1997, murdered Gianni Versace. We stood there for about a half hour listening to this man tell how he tragically lost his best friend, Andrew, and how he missed him every day. I had the chills and I couldn't take any more of his story, so I looked at my phone and turned to my friend and said, Oh my gosh, we're late. We said goodbye to the man and ran back to the car.

We didn't look back, just got in the car and left. There was just something about him, his story and his close friendship to Kunanan that has stayed with me to this day. Coincidentally, this happened right before the FX American crime story about Versace was to come out. Our theory was that he did miss his friend and wanted to see his favorite place again. but just how he hyper-focused on Andrew and what had made Andrew famous is still something I think about. I'm sure there's a few ghost stories to be told about Fort Mott, but I will always think of Andrew Koonanan and his friend who misses him, Jordan. That's so scary to just be outside and come across this random, creepy old man who's talking about his best friend who's a serial killer. Right. I'm pretty sure his most famous victim is Gianni Fersachi, but I'm pretty sure he's.

he killed like four or five other people. Yeah, he murdered five people over three months. And he just like randomly went on this killing spree. And then I'm pretty sure he ended up committing suicide after he killed Versace. Oh my God. Yeah, I don't really know that much about him for some reason. But it is odd. Like I do understand if he was your friend, I guess. It's still a loss. No, it's like good riddance, not your friend anymore. They are a serial. killer. Like there's just friends that you don't know. Well, just don't share that information to random people that you meet outside. Like two young women, you don't need to tell them how much you miss a serial killer that was your friend. It's just odd. I kind of have a story kind of in relation

to this one. Not really that I'll go too much into detail. But there was this guy that I knew growing up because one of my friends didn't date him but like really liked him growing up. And anyway, he went on to murder his stepmom and then killed himself after. Very horrible, tragic, awful. And afterwards they created all these memorial pages for him, remembering his life and how much they loved him and how wonderful he was. And it was just like, no, you don't do that anymore. Like you can grieve privately.

but when someone viciously murders other people, it's not looked at in the same, or accepted in the same way. Yeah. It's just like, yeah, it's just the icky. And to kind of be glorit, not, they weren't glorifying what he did. It doesn't sound like,

but just to like fondly remember the days where you were playing with a serial killer. It's just kind of like, oh, I'm sure those were fond days and he wasn't a serial killer then, but it's really scary that you're talking about. about it now. Yeah. Ugh. Don't like that. Mm-mm. Don't like that at all. I have a less morbid story for the next one. Let's go into that one. I feel icky. That was a really cool story, though. Thank you for writing that in. It gives me the

chills just thinking about it. This one is titled, Teaching Middle Schoolers in a Volcano Eruption. It says, Hi, Danielle and Cassie. I love listening to the podcast and hearing the amazing stories you tell. Episode 9, Patagonia, the death of a conservation legend, really stayed with me since I lived in Patagonia at the time that it happened. I remember hearing in the local news about how the founder of North Face died while kayaking and about the rescue. Even though I was around that area when it happened, I learned so much more about Doug and his conservation efforts from your episode. Well, thank you. My story takes place around the same area, but on Lake Yankyuan. In 2015, I moved to Puerto Veras, Chile, to be an English foreign language teacher at the

the middle high school. This town is on the edge of Patagonia in the Andes Mountains and surrounded by lakes, mountains, and volcanoes. It is truly one of the most beautiful places that I've ever seen. One afternoon, teaching a class of middle schoolers, a coworker knocks on my classroom window and says, Look outside. The volcanoes erupting. Of course, my class and I run to the windows, and sure enough, there is a pillar of ash rising out of Volcan Calbuco. I started panicking about what to do with a class full of middle schoolers during an active volcano eruption while in my first month as a teacher. Do I continue trying to teach? Do we go watch the eruption? And of course, parents immediately started coming to pick up their kids as soon as they heard what was going on. It was truly a trial by fire

for teaching a class and trying not to scare the kiddos while internally panicking. At the time, I was renting a room in a hostel and we were two kilometers outside of the evacuation zone. Most of us living at the hostel decided to bunker down and stay. We filled all the bathtubs and sinks with water just in case and then met in the hostel living room to watch Dante's peak. My morbid's suggestion. Through the night, we would go outside to see the eruption and we would even catch glimpses of lightning in the rising ash cloud. This eruption was a complete surprise since scientists weren't monitoring this volcano. Their attention was on the other volcano in the area, Volcan Osirno, which hasn't erupted since literally Charles Darwin was there.

Even though there was a ton of ash and rocks, luckily no one was killed or even injured in the eruption. But there was substantial property damage in the town at the base of the volcano from ash falling on houses and collapsing roofs. The eruption happened on April 22nd, which is Earth Day. I feel like the volcano erupted to remind us how spectacular mother nature is and also how easily the earth can turn against us. So we need to respect and take care of her.

you for all the work you put into the podcast and keep telling amazing stories. Whoa. And you sent me a picture of the volcano. Yeah, they sent in pictures and they're incredible. We're definitely going to post them on our Instagram so you'll all get to see it. But they took amazing photos of it. Well, she was right there. Yeah. Can you imagine being like, I'm just going to stay. I'm just going to sit here and watch this volcano erupt and just hope for the best. Well, she did say she's like my morbid suggestion. Yeah.

Wow. To sit and watch. Oh, whoa. I just, I don't know if I've ever witnessed anything like that. Obviously, I've never seen a volcano erupt. But just to be in the presence of such like a massive earthly occurrence like that. Yeah. I just, I mean, growing up in New England, we don't get any natural disaster.

You know, we just, I've never been in the presence of like. a tornado or not that I want to like I don't it's just to see something that's spectacular and potentially destructive but also being safe at the same time like she said she was from a safe distance and all that like what a what a cool experience yeah it's like um not i guess this isn't a safe distance but storm chasers that chase tornadoes and hurricanes and stuff and they're just watching it from it's just so cool it's like a car i'm accident, you, you can't look away, even though you should probably run away. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it's just like the natural beauty and the- curiosity of it. And just like the power of Mother Nature. And it's just this unstoppable force that you have no control over and you're just in awe, essentially. You're just witnessing it. Like, oh, my, wow. The earth does this.

My next one begins, hey, ladies. I just finished listening to Trail Tales number four, and one of your stories really resonated with me in conjunction of episode 21, Little Islands. Listening to Trail Tales 4 and the story of the discovery and recovery of Native American artifacts in the Shoshone National Forest got me to thinking about my own experience with the spirits of our native ancestors. I grew up in the middle of Sioux Nation in Nebraska. We lived on roughly 3,000 acres, and there was not another homestead around for maybe five miles. A natural spring is present on my parents' property, and it does not freeze over in the harsh Midwest winters. For this reason, the Sioux would often winter over in this spot. When I was probably eight or nine, pottery and other utilities were discovered in this spot. No formal protections were ever put in place by local, state, or federal government for this area.

So one afternoon in September, I ventured over to the stream and did a little digging and excavating of my own. On this particular day, I had found several intact arrowheads, knives, and several broken pottery jars and bowls, which was my biggest find ever. Later that night, I was outside by myself with my dogs, and it was a beautiful full harvest moon. It was a dark, red, and orange, one of the most beautiful moons I've ever seen. Just after sun went down, I began hearing what sounded like drums banging and a rhythmic musical chanting. While I was hearing these sounds, my dogs became visibly anxious and began to pace. As quickly as these sounds started, they faded off. To this day, whenever I go back to my parents' house and walk by this natural spring,

or in the canyons, I feel as if I'm constantly being watched. While out hiking, I will often hear twigs breaking and leaves crunching, but have never once seen an animal making those noises. 21 years later, when I think about all of this, I can't help but getting anxious and teary-eyed for no reason. What are your thoughts? I love your show. Keep up the good work, Nick.

So cool to find stuff like that. Thank you, Nick, number one, for writing that in. But number two, for bringing up kind of like a suppressed memory that I had from my own childhood. When I was young, so I was probably also, I don't know, maybe around 10 to 12, I used to spend the summers part of it with my dad in Connecticut. I lived in New Hampshire. He lived in Connecticut. So obviously I'd go down and see him for bigger chunks when I had school off. And he had to work, you know, just because I was there for a few weeks, he still had to work.

So I would go to my aunt's house. And my aunt lived in a like apartment complex type of townhouse complex. It was at a time. It was like the 90s, early 90s where all the kids from the neighborhood would just literally go out all day in the summer. Didn't see an adult for hours and hours and hours. You'd come back for dinner, you know, type of thing. Me and the neighborhood kids, apartment complex kids would go out. There was a streamish river type of thing that was in the back of the property that went on for miles.

It connected to other towns and things. And we would roll up our pants and walk down the stream forever. I remember one time it got really deep. And one of the older cool kids, his name was Russell. He was probably like 15. But to me, he was older and cool. He dove down and picked up. It was like an old discarded like TV.

And like it was mostly junk. You know, people just throw junk in. I remember like picking. leeches off of me at the end of the day. It was gross. But one time, we were just hanging out on one of the banks. And there was something kind of like sticking out. And we started digging. And we uncovered all this really cool old pottery and all those old glass jars from like the late 1800s, early 1900s. It was like an old trash pit, you know, essentially. But we were uncovering all this cool stuff. And I kept it for years because number one, it was.

a cool memory. But number two, I thought, you know, maybe it's valuable. I don't know. Like, yeah. So I kept it for years. And then one time there was this girl that didn't hang out with us because she was cooler than us. And my dad came to pick me up one day. And she came out into the parking lot. We were all hanging out and talking. And she's like, look what I found. And it was an arrowhead. My dad was so, he was like trying to barter with this 12 year old girl. Like, I will pay you Like a hundred bucks cash right now for that because he was super interested. And he was like, show me where you got. And she's like, no, she was like, you know, mom's the word.

Yeah. And I never know what happened to it and whatnot. But I just remember everyone being so intrigued that she found it where we had all spent so much time and had been digging around. She said she just found it laying right on the bank of the river. That's so cool that we're still finding stuff like that. And it holds so much history that's here. And you can still see that history today. It's just so cool.

But going back to your email, Nick, what are our thoughts? I think that you're probably in a highly spiritual place, obviously. And there's echoes of the past there. And I think that that's awesome. Yeah, 100% can say it better. Agreed. It sounds like a very high. There's a big energy there, it feels like.

Mm-hmm. And I also think that not everyone. is privy to experiencing that. Kind of like, this is probably a very poor comparison, but do you know in the Polar Express when they're talking about the bells, the sleigh bells, and only children who believe in, like, Santa can hear them? Yeah. I imagine it like that.

Only people with spiritual ties and respect for the land and connection with the history there can sense things like that. that. Like you have to really believe in it to see it and yeah and feel it. My next one says, Hi, Cassie and Danielle. I adore this podcast and have been listening since the beginning. I'm so excited to finally get to share my trail tale with you. My husband and I love dry camping, mostly because we love knowing that we're the only people around. Same. One day back in 2013, we spontaneously decided to go camping for one night so that we could watch a meteor shower. away from the city lights. We packed up the car and drove 90 minutes into the Willamette National

Forest in Oregon. After turning off the highway and driving for another 45 minutes on the gravel forestry road, we were finally amongst nature and hadn't seen another human since leaving the highway. We got our stuff set up and settled in to watch the meteor shower. We finally decided to get some sleep shortly after midnight. Since we were only camping for one night, we brought the bare minimum. We had a tiny three-person tent with a full-size air mattress. I remember, I remember jerking awake a few hours after going to bed. My husband and dog were snoring and taking up the entire bed, and I was wedged between the air mattress and the tent. Needless to say, I was wide awake. I sat there for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do when I started to hear wrestling noises. All of the sudden, something was walking up to my tent. A bipedal. Something. It wasn't trying to be quiet. Whatever it was. It was walking right up to the tent right where I was laying. It placed its finger against the top of the tent and proceeded to walk all the way around us, dragging its finger on the tent.

While this is happening, I'm trying to silently wake up my husband by pinching into his arm. He snored through the whole thing. Whatever this was, walked around the tent, and then walked away the same way it came. Once it was gone, I was finally able to breathe. I woke my husband up. He got out of the tent and looked around. He didn't find anything other than broken tree branches in the direction that it came and went. I go back and forth on what I think it was that night, alone in the middle of nowhere.

Bigfoot sightings are not uncommon in this part of Oregon. I like to believe that Bigfoot was curious and needed to come check out our tent that night. The alternative, a lone person walking into the people's camp in the middle of the night, is too terrifying to think about. thankfully this experience hasn't kept us out of the forest the willamette national forest is our happy place and the thought of bigfoot visiting keeps bringing us back but we definitely will watch our back keep up the great work kim okay immediately i'm a bigfoot person obviously but i feel like that was a person i don't know why how i picture this is i picture spearfinger just dreading Her finger across the... I feel like it's a person. Me too, because that is scary.

That's so scary, though. I agree that that thinking, it's too terrifying to think that it's a person because just drag your finger across the top of the tent, knowing there's people inside and then just circle and walk around and walk back. It's very intentional. That's why I feel as if it's a person who's doing it to intention. upset or freak out the people inside. Yeah.

For no other reason than to be a freak. Or had other intentions and heard her husband snoring and was like, there's multiple people here. Yeah. I don't. I don't. And the reason why I think it's a person is because it gives me flashbacks to my personal story, which I will not share completely here. But I experienced a break in when I was in college.

and the person woke me up. And when he realized that there was someone next to me, my boyfriend was sleeping next to me, he raised his finger to his lips in like a sh type of fashion and then backed out of the room and left. You've told me this story before and every single time you mention it, it gives me like full body chills. I just cannot. And that whole, that intentional finger drag gave me a flashback to that. And it's, and it was a person for sure. I think.

I don't know. For sure, I think. Maybe. Either way, possibly. Glad you're fine and that whatever it was decided to leave you alone and that it hasn't deterred you from returning to the woods. Yeah. That's the most important part. Yeah.

Normally, this is where we would say goodbye. We usually share three stories each. But I have a little extra one that I found very. Oh, you have another one? Yeah, I found it really heartwarming. and like we mentioned in the beginning of the episode, just wanting either trail magic stories or uplifting stories to kind of end on. I feel like this one is fitting.

And I was going to save it for another episode because now with all these stories, I have this huge backlog of all these stories I want to share and I have to pick through and divide them up. But we're going to share an extra one. So we're going to end on a high note today. And just to be clear, we do love your morbid stories and keep sending those in. We just like to mix in a little inspiration. Yeah, don't get twisted, okay?

Yeah, yeah, we're still morbid. Like, send us all your crazy, creepy stuff like this. But we just like to mix in some really happy, heartwarming things in the middle, too. So this one is titled When the Universe Perfectly Alines. Hey, Cassie and Danielle, my name is Leah, and my boyfriend, Cade and I are huge fans of your podcasts. We are avid New Jersey listeners and have followed the podcast since the beginning of fall. Needless to say, we are completely up to date with episodes. That being said, we have a trail tale for you that we would love to have air.

on an episode if we are ever so lucky. Well, honey, today's your lucky day. Hello. In December of 2019, I, Leah, took a solo trip to Maui where I celebrated New Year's into 2020 and fell absolutely in love with the island and its way of life. When I returned home, I immediately got in touch with the friends I had made there looking to work at the hostel I stayed at. They hired me to work from July to October. I was so stoked and couldn't wait. Fast forward to the pandemic and unfortunately the trip was canceled. Extremely bummed, I made a point to be outside in nature the week I would have left in lieu of the missed

opportunity. Kate and I scheduled a trip to go camping in Watkins, Glen, New York, from July 6th to the 13th. We wanted to visit the largest finger lake in the region and hike. Very important detail here. We deliberately left the same day I was intended to leave for Maui, which was July. 6th, 2020. We arrived at our campsite early afternoon, quickly pitched our tent, and off we went to Watkins Glen. We randomly selected a trail and began hiking. We get past the tourist spots and continue venturing far beyond the most visited locations. This park is 778 acres, so there was a lot of ground to cover. We decided to stop for a snack and go off the trail to an elevated surface where we saw a bunch of super tall trees. We sat on a fallen tree, and while I was getting up,

our food out, Cade was literally kicking rocks and sticks nearby when all of a sudden I heard him shout, oh my God, you've got to be kidding me. He kneels to the ground and picks up a dirty pin in good condition. It wasn't larger than the size of a quarter. The pin said, Maui, and had an image of the island, a whale and a pineapple. I couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe it. We stood there quietly observing this and both thinking, what are the odds? On the day, I was intended to leave for Maui, but the pandemic stopped the trip, we were in a completely different state, just so happened to be off the trail in that specific spot, and found a Maui pin no larger than a quarter. I mean, come on. If that isn't life signaling to me quite literally, I'm on the right

track. I don't know what will. To this day, I still have the pin, and I definitely feel like it's a beacon of comfort and incentive to keep going. My life mantra is, life has a funny way of working things out. And I thought that must have been the universe or something reassuring me that everything was okay. Thank you for listening to our story. We hope you enjoyed it. Best Leah and Cade. The world works in such mysterious ways. Like there's no way that that was a coincidence. You know, like what are the chances of that happening? And especially it's not like it said Hawaii on it. It literally said Maui. It was just very specific. And like she said, what are the odds? What are the odds? The world has a way of telling you that you're where you're supposed to be. And hey, maybe that pin is a sign telling you

to go to Maui still. It's like now it's not the time you're in the right place, but here's a reminder that you still got to go. Don't forget about Maui. Don't forget. You're not there yet, but you're going. You're going. That's what that pin is. That I just loved that because I think we can all, not everyone has such a in your face sign. You know, like that was very clear. I think. Yes. But I think we can all reflect back on different points in our lives where something happens that kind of gives us the feeling of we're where we need to be. We're on the right track. It's all going to be okay. No matter the hiccups and the sidetracks. I mean, the pandemic messed up a lot of things for a lot of people, but not just about the pandemic, about, you know, life throws you curveballs. And in the moment, it may really, really suck. And you think that it's. It's the worst thing that could happen to you. But things usually tend to turn around and usually for the best. Yeah.

I feel like this is a good story that reminds you to make the best of your situation. For this one, she went out and she did something in the outdoors, even though she couldn't be in Maui doing what she wanted. And then the world brought her a little gift to be like, you know, this is where you're supposed to be right now. But Maui's waiting for you. And here it is right here. I loved it. Thanks for sending that in. And thank you, everyone, for joining us again for our Trail Tales.

We just love them so much. So don't forget to share whatever you have to NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Thank you, everyone for tuning in again. TrailTales has become one of our episodes that are our favorite to do. So keep writing into us, keep talking to us, NPAad Stories at gmail.com. and yeah, in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye, everyone.

Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Become an outsider by joining our Patreon where you'll gain access to monthly boasts. stories and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our partners, you're supporting our show. To access our special discount codes along with source information from today's episode, check out the show notes. For information on the show, to shop our merch store, sign up for our

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