This happened during spring break of my junior year of college.

Me and my three closest friends, Kevin, Ali, and Seb, decided to go car camping in Colorado.

We'd been doing these trips together since freshman year, but we were all pretty broke that semester,

so we went with dispersed camping instead of paying for an actual campground.

I found this spot on one of those camping apps that showed free sites.

It was somewhere outside of Buena Vista, tucked back on this forest service road that seemed to go on forever.

The four of us had done enough camping together that we knew what we were doing.

We got there around late afternoon and found this clearing near what looked like it used to be a creek bed. It was completely dried up, but you could tell water had run through there at some point.

The area was pretty isolated.

We didn't see any other campers or even tire tracks from recent visitors.

It was honestly perfect for the kind of vibe we were going for.

We set up our tents in a loose

cluster, maybe 15 feet apart from each other. Nothing fancy about the arrangement, just

wherever the ground looked level and didn't have too many rocks. I don't even remember

what we did that night, probably just drank a few of the beers we brought while

playing cards. We were all pretty tired from the drive, so we called it around 11 and went to our separate tents.

I remember sleeping really heavily that night, which was weird for me to begin with, but especially

during a camping trip. Usually, and this is when I'm sleeping on a comfortable bed in a climate

controlled room,

I wake up multiple times from being cold or needing to pee or whatever else.

Point is, I'm a very light sleeper, and during a camping trip, forget it.

I'm used to waking up at least three times.

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