The Twilight Zone

Day 22 – July 21

A very unique day…

The actual ride from Farmington to Ellington was not too memorable. But our night spent in Ellington was one that Lee and I will remember for a long time.

After a full day of riding, we rolled into Ellington looking for the park to set up shop for the night. We found out where it was and took a mile and a half detour to the back of town and found our Brawley Park. We thought that being towards the back of the town and tucked away, we would not have much company, but we were not alone. There was a family celebrating a couple of their kids’ birthdays together. We had plopped ourselves down by some benches away from their party, which was at some picnic tables under a covering, which we decided we were going to sleep on after they left.

They very graciously offered us some of the food that they had cooked up, which included hamburgers on sliced bread, pork, and crunchy cooked potatoes. A few things that struck both of us right off the bat were the 1) quantity of kids that this family had 2) how dirty the kids were and 3) how little control they had over their kids. The kids greeted us with cake smeared all over their faces and arms, which is cute for a little while when they are eating, but most parents usually clean it up after they are done eating. Not them…they just let the kids be kids along with their dirty feet and diapers. I would say there were at least seven kids between two mothers of 20 and 23. During the two hours we spent with them, I don’t think either one of them ever really sat down because they were busy chasing the kids down and trying to wrangle them in the picnic area, especially TJ, who had one heck of a mullet going for only being a couple of years old. Pretty much from the minute we got there to the minute the family left there was non-stop chaos, yelling, and baby-wrangling.

This family also just found four puppies that were abandoned in some nearby bushes, dehydrated and underfed. So they ended up taking these dogs home with them in addition to the two dogs they already had.  

It is tough to describe the entire situation because it was just so bizarre and I am sure that the description doesn’t really sound that strange, but it was an experience that Lee and I had never encountered.

Once the family left, we set up our beds on the picnic tables and held our fingers crossed that not too many animals would visit during the night due to the large amounts of food that all the kids had thrown and left around the area. Once it got dark, we quickly realized that through this secluded park was a very busy throughway (gravel road) going to some park land behind us which had traffic throughout the night. This was according to Lee since I basically go into a coma at night. Lee tells me the next morning that he had a horrible night sleep due to all the locals driving by to check out the bikers, his fear of a re-enactment of ‘Deliverance’, and the critters visiting to scavenge the food.

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