I’m not a Henderson

When I was very young, while camping in Kennedy Meadows in California, a crew of researchers swarmed the area we were camping in.  They set up cameras.  They made casts.  They collected samples.  They watched and waited.

Two summers ago, while camping along Bubbs Creak on a backpacking trip in the Sierra, my brother and I went on a late evening water run (pumping fresh water to replenish what we drank with dinner), and my brother froze as he saw something walking upright on the periphery of his vision.

Last summer, while camping at Ranger Lake also on a backpacking trip in the Sierra, we found a print in the mud that could easily have been the imprint left by a large rock… except, there was no large rock, there were no other prints around it to explain why the “rock” had vanished, and the shape of the print could just as easily been that of a foot sinking into the mud as a giant bipedal creature walked along the shore.

These are not my only encounters with this particular cryptid.  Over the years there have been unexplained noises in the night (easily brushed off as wind through the trees, known animals calling out to each other distorted by towering canyon walls and filtered through the dense forest).  There have been glimpses of movement, barely perceptible (could have been a bear or a deer pushing through the brush).  There have been moments when it feels like you aren’t alone and something is watching your every step (the mountains are a lonely, quiet place, and it is easy for paranoia and fear to settle in).

No, I’m not a Henderson, but I believe in Bigfoot all the same.  Every time I venture into the wild I wonder if that will be the time I see the elusive creature for myself.  It is a moment I eagerly await and completely dread at the same time.  Not every Bigfoot story involves giant hairballs in the neighbors pool.  If I never see it, though, that won’t keep me from knowing that it is out there all the same.

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Okay!  Who’s ready to go camping with me now?

Thanks Rara and Dave of The Queen Creative for another great prompt:

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Cryptozoology is the search for legendary animals, usually in an attempt to evaluate or confirm the possibility of existence.  This includes looking for living examples of animals that are considered extinct, such as dinosaurs; animals whose existence lacks physical evidence but which appear in myths, legends, or are reported, such as Bigfoot and Chupacabra; and wild animals dramatically outside their normal geographic ranges, such as phantom cats. The animals cryptozoologists study are often referred to as cryptids, a term coined by John Wall in 1983.

More on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptozoology

Suggested Prompts:

• Tell us about your favorite cryptid
• Make up a new creature or animal, and perhaps one day it will be legendary enough. What animals is it similar to?
• Tell us about a cryptid you want to believe in
• Share your thoughts on cryptozoology
• Show us a picture related to cryptozoology
• … or make up your own related prompt!

impossible is nothing

I believe in several things that are “impossible.”

I believe in magic.  I believe in the miracle aspect of magic, that sometimes great things just happen, as well as the more applied aspects: chanting, coercing, nudging events to follow a certain path.  I certainly wouldn’t want to cross anyone who was proficient in voodoo.

I believe that something is definitely going on in the Bermuda Triangle.  This one is different from magic because it is a naturally occurring phenomenon rather than something imposed by those walking the earth.  To many things have gone down in that little geometric shape for them all to be coincidence.  It is not on my list of places to visit.

I believe in Bigfoot.  How often are we discovering new things about the world we live in?  How many times have those “new” things been right under our noses and we just didn’t have the technology or the drive to look for them.  But, more importantly, I want to believe in this creature of the wild lands.  I want to live in a world that still has mysteries like this to be uncovered.

I believe in super heroes.  I think we all have the potential to be a hero.  I think we all have it in us to rise up and do something extraordinary, to advocate, to save, to exceed expectations and perform beyond belief.  I think we can do this in a very real way if we just apply ourselves.  I also believe there are people among us who have developed their hero side a bit more, they act as our guardian angels and they look out for us as much as they can.

I believe in ghosts.  I grew up in a haunted house.  I’ve seen things I cannot explain, but I believed long before I had seen these spirits, shapes, bendings of light and color.  I would still believe even if I had never seen, even if all hauntings had been proved to be hoaxes.

I believe in aliens.  I won’t even get into the idea of UFOs and abductions.  Just a sheer size and numbers game, the universe is too vast, full of too many unknowns and therefore possibilities, for us to be the only intelligent species to have life.  It is selfish of us to think any other way.