4/17/2020 2 Comments The Wild Goat that Chased UsBy: Raechel Painovich Where did the car go? I just saw my mom and my older sister as I passed them on the way to the bathroom and my dad as he was paying for gas. I know the car was parked right out front when I went in. Is this some kind of a joke? I thought to myself. But I came to the realization that it wasn’t. They had really left me here. How did none of my siblings notice I was gone? As I sat on the curb, waiting for them to remember me, I was flooded with memories of the trip we'd just been on. I mean, yeah... I was mad. They LEFT me at the gas station. But until this moment it had been the best trip of my life. Well, except for that one day with the mountain goat. That was one of the scariest moments of my life.
The adventure began one really early morning, my family of 6 piled into the car and started the 700 mile drive to the Black Hills. It was way to early for me so I slept most of the car ride there with my blanket snuggled closely to me. I woke up hours later to the sound of my sister’s voice shouting, “Raechel! Raechel! Raechel! Look out the window!” I slowly began to rise from my seat and peered out the window. She was pointing to a rock sculpture that looked like a needle. Moments later my mom leaned over her shoulder and told us that we were going to go hike there tomorrow. I could not have been more thrilled, I was so excited. The rock sculpture began to fade as we drove further and further from it. I dozed back to sleep until we arrived at our campsite. We went to sleep for the night in our camper and dreamed about the fun filled hike we were going on tomorrow. That morning I woke to the orange glow of the South Dakota sun shining vibrantly through the camper window. I hopped out of bed and got my hiking gear on and then we drove up the mountain side to go see the rock that was shaped like a needle. The needle rock was really really tall and fascinating but not as cool as the mountain goats that were hopping around on top of the nearby rocks. We drove further up the mountain and that was when I had my first encounter with the mountain goats. We all piled out of the car and got lost in big rock formations. My older sister and I walked around for a while until we found a narrow path, so we squeezed through the rock sideways to find on the other side a mama goat and it’s baby lying on a nearby rock. Immediately I pulled out my blue IPod to take a picture, as soon as I put my hand in my pocket and started to slide it out, it fell from my hands and landed right next to the two goats. Now I was thinking, how am I supposed to get my phone back? I looked at my sister with puppy dog eyes and she rolls her eyes back at me. She slowly drops to her hands and knees and starts crawling towards my phone. I am scared so scared for her. What if she gets too close to the goats? As all of these thoughts appear in my head she is reaching her arm out and carefully picks up the phone and hands it back to me. Why was that so easy for her? I was in disbelief but I was so thankful she was able to get my phone without disturbing the goats. For the rest of the day I kept my phone in my zipped pocket. But that was not even close to the scariest thing that happened to me. Later that same day, I found my brother wandering between some large rocks and I asked him,”Do you know where the rest of our family is?” He shook his head no so we walked back through the narrow opening in the rocks and there stood a huge crowd of people staring above us. I made eye contact with my dad who was standing among the crowd and he was pointing above us mouthing the words “look up.” So I did just that and looked up, standing above us were 3 goats jumping from rock to rock over our heads. I looked at my brother and he looked back at me and we both had the same idea. We cautiously turned around and headed back behind the rocks. Not more than a few seconds later my brother’s brooding eyes were staring right over my left shoulder. I hesitated to look and then slowly turn my head as if I was an owl looking for prey, and about 30 feet behind me was the thundering sound of a mountain goat galloping down the side of an enormous metamorphic rock coming towards us at top speed. I let out this awful uneasy noise - it was supposed to be a scream but sounded much worse. Immediately I made a plan and lifted my arm to point towards a path between two gigantic rocks, my brother began to sprint and I followed him grazing his heels every step. Our legs were striding out as far as they could stretch and our adrenaline was through the roof. The thudding of the mountain goats' steps were coming closer and closer and I was becoming more scared every second. We were jumping over big rocks and ducking under fallen trees to avoid the mountain goat but still it was chasing us. Everything was happening in mere seconds, but time slowed for a minute and my mind was filled with thoughts and questions that couldn’t be answered. What if I trip and fall? Will my family even notice we’re gone? How much longer do we have to run? My legs were getting very tired and I was starting to slow down, I looked behind me to see if the goat was still there and its face was almost touching mine, so I let out another shrill scream and ran faster again. My IPod was bouncing up and down in my pocket making it harder to run. We were turning left and right trying to outrun this mountain goat but it was impossible. It felt like we had been running for hours. My legs were completely numb at this point. I decided to take another glance back slowly turning my head and there was no mountain goat. Where did it go? I kept running just in case it was just hiding but eventually we slowed to a stop. Phew what a relief we had just outrun a mountain goat! My emotions had completely changed. I was in shock. But it didn’t end there, there was another problem, where were we? We had run so far we were now lost in the big rocks and couldn’t see anyone in the distance. Honk! I was in such a deep reverie I had almost forgotten I was sitting on the curb where my family left me behind. The black minivan was pulling in around the corner. I slowly stood with an angry look upon my face as the sliding door of the van began to open. As soon as I lifted my leg to step up into the van I was hit with 5 different looks from my family members. I immediately hopped in the back ignoring all of them. I sat squished between my dad who was trying to hug me and my older sister who was staring out the window in embarrassment for the rest of the car ride home. Although I had been through one of the most emotionally-filled family vacations, I would forever remember that with great adventure comes great risk.
2 Comments
Allyce
4/17/2020 10:19:07 am
Good story, raechel!!
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Tori Fulweiler
4/17/2020 11:34:21 am
A family vacation that you will always remember! Sounds like it was adventurous, scary and exciting all wrapped up into one. Great story!
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