Russia
Alexy
Aljona
Arina
Artyom
Dasha M.
Dasha S.
Dima
Dima Zh.
Irina
Ksusha
Kristina
Margarita
Misha
Nastya
Nikita
Olga
Ruslan
Sasha
Zhenya
Zhenya B
One day I traveled to a lake in Florida to go canoeing with my family. The trip there was a very slow and boring one, so when I saw the lake I felt like the happiest person in the world. There was only one thing bugging me. Why had my uncle insisted on going to this one lake? There most likely was a closer lake than this one and yet my uncle still insisted on going to this one place. I didn’t really care but it kind of bothered me. I felt like there was some thing weird about this lake but I ignored the feeling and got out of the car.
The lake was split into three parts. There was the main
part of the lake, which was by far the largest. There was a smaller lake
that was private and no one was allowed on, and the third part was slightly
larger than the private one, but it was much more quiet.
As we walked up to the canoe rental cabin, we past many people who were stating at us with big, round, saucer like eyes. At first I thought that these people clearly had problems so I just ignored them and continued towards the cabin.
We got our canoes and started to walk towards the water. I noticed that, once again, the people were stating blankly at us. I just ignored them until I noticed some one giggling. I turned and saw a middle aged women giggling silently at us. I also noticed that some of the other people were holding in their laughter. I thought that there was obviously something funny about what we were doing but I didn’t really care so I continued to the water.
Once we managed to get the canoes into the water and get in them, we were off. I was in a canoe with my uncle and he apparently wanted to get all the way across the lake before my brother and dad. I spent 20 minutes of paddling, being exhausted, attempting to stop, and getting yelled at to keep going. I was getting pretty mad at my uncle because we were easily 40 feet in front of my dad and brother and because they weren’t going nearly as fast as we were. I looked at the other side of the lake that we were coming up on rather quickly as gasped in surprise.
There was nothing special about this side at all! My uncle had dragged me out of bed at 6 in the morning, made me take a 2 and a half hour drive to the is one specific lake out in god knows where, to sit around and do nothing. I that I saw some logs that looked like they were moving but I just ignored it because I was so mad at my uncle for bringing us to this pointless spot to do nothing. I looked back to see my brother and father in the other canoe and they looked just as annoyed and mad as I was.
And to top it all off this guy in a loud boat came by us and started yelling at us for no apparent reason. He had many people in the boat so it looked like they were on a tour. But why would they have a tour on this side of the lake? There wasn’t anything here. As he turned to go, I heard him yell, “ You’re scaring away the Alligators”. I turned around again to look at the shore and that is when I noticed one of them.
An alligator appeared in the water no more than 17 feet away. It was huge to say the least. It looked around and then disappeared into the water. Then, as if it was all planned out, tons and tons of alligators started popping out of the water. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. There were alligators on the shore, there were alligators in the water, and just when I thought that it couldn’t get any worse, an alligator pops up and swims along right next to our canoe. I was terrified. More alligators were popping up and they weren’t stopping. My uncle and I quickly started to row away from the shore. When we turned to look back, we were met by a big surprise.
All of the alligators that had been there had mysteriously disappeared. I looked around at my brother and father and they looked just as surprised. After a couple minutes of silence, an alligator popped its head out of the water and was looking right at us. We decided, shortly after, that it was getting pretty late and that we had better get back home. So, we took off towards the opposite shore to tell my mother and aunt what had happened.
As we walked back towards our car, we saw another family renting canoes and going down towards the water. They too were watched by staring people and a silently chuckled at. I laughed to myself as I got into our car. They were in for a big surprise.
That was my most significant memory of my early childhood. No event had ever been this scary for me. It was also an event that taught me a very valuable lesson: Never trust my uncle with anything because when you do, something bad will most like likely happen and it will leave you haunting memories for the rest of your life.
USA
Darian
Duncan
Emily
Evan F
Evan T
Jakob
Jason
Kelly
Milo
Nathan
Philip
Richard
Ryan
Teddy
Tom D
Tom I