The We went on a camping trip to Harriman State Park.

It was me, Simon, and Eddie, just the three of us,

looking to get away from the city for a weekend. We planned it for weeks, packed our gear,

and drove up from Brooklyn on a Friday afternoon. And the park was quiet when we got there,

and we set up camp near one of the smaller lakes,

a spot that we'd picked off of a map because it was far from the main trails.

By the time we had the tent set up and a fire going, it was already getting dark,

but the first night was awesome.

We had hot dogs, a few beers, and the first serious catch-up in months.

And the next day, we decided to hit the trails.

It was late morning, and we didn't have any kind of plan.

We just followed a trail until it kind of petered out and then kept going anyway.

My buddy Eddie had his phone out, snapping pictures of mushrooms and random rocks,

while Simon kept talking about finding a good spot for lunch.

I was just along for the walk, half listening to them argue about whether there were

bigfoot's in New York, and after a couple of hours, the trees started thinning out and we

came up on a small lake that we hadn't seen on the map.

It was small, less than

a hundred yards across, and right there near the shore was this lone wooden shack. It wasn't

much to look at. The wood was this sort of weathered, grayish, brown type and splintered in various

places like it had been sitting there for decades at this point.

The roof kind of sagged a little, and there was no glass in the single window,

...