The Hippie Hole

The Hippie Hole

Cainen Crowder, Writer

The Day was just like any other day When my dad says we were going to go camping in Alabama. “Look here’s the deal Cainen. If you do not Wanna go that’s fine, but I’m not asking. I had to work my butt off to get us this spot it’s in DeSoto state park,” My dad said.

“I have no Idea where that even is. Anyway, I just already planned stuff with my friend’s dad.”

“Well, you can tell them that they can wait tell next week.”

We are now on our way over to Alabama we had to stop quite a few times, but we eventually got to the park. My dad had a lot of things planned for us in such a short amount of time I had no Idea what I was getting myself into. We go get the camper from my grandparents’ house and we start heading that way. It feels like forever before we even cross the borderline, but we eventually make it to the small town that is home to DeSoto national park. We go to our campsite and its quite far into the campground, but luckily, we still had service. The way the atmosphere was and the way the campground just felt was unlike any other I had ever been to. Now for the exact reason that we had gone (which was to get away and have fun) my dad wakes us up bright and early and tells us.

“We are going on a bike ride.”

“What are you talking about its only seven let me sleep in,” I say throwing the covers over my head. We he pretty much dragged me out of bed and made me get ready. I really love my dad but sometimes man. It just gets a little too much for me. Anyway, the bikes we brought for the trip were all really fancy mountain bikes. Except for mine. I had an old orange Cannon dell with no shocks once so ever. Picture this, A nice evergreen forest with a brand-new blazed trail. When you ride through it dirt sputters up on your back. Ahh those were the good days. See When I ride its more along the lines of a magnitude 9 earthquake. Most people would be like “Cainen just get a new bike,” well I did not need one. Before I would use my mom’s bike whenever we would go anywhere because she never went with us. To continue with the story, we rode bikes for a couple of hours until it got dark and then we went to go eat at Stevie B’s pizza. Man, it was good! Now when you ask my friends who has the best pizza Cici’s or Stevie B’s? They will say CiCi’s all day long, but something about being stuck in the woods then getting to have a pizza is just the greatest feeling ever. I had about 6 pieces all together of pizza at our green and grey wall booth. Chase (my little brother) begged my mom to let him have some money to play the arcade games.

“Come on mom you buy everything for Cainen. Just let me have a $5.”

“I have no Idea where you got that from. I would give him a little more money if he did not beg all the time boy,” My mom said.

While this all is happening, I notice my dad eyeballing the dessert bar. Now if you know my dad, he is the Healthiest eater I know. Scratch that he tries to be the best eater he can. That rubs off on me already. If I am ever out with my friends, the waiter will come around for drinks and I will be the only one at the table who asks for water. It’s crazy. Anyway, we all enjoy the dessert bar, and we get out of there. The next morning my dad wakes us up and its pouring rain. So, we have to put our plans on hold. Until it stopped raining, we chilled out inside of the camper and wait. After what felt like years it stopped raining, we finally plotted a course to Little River Canyon. When we get there, we see quite a few people where they aren’t supposed to be. I look at Chase and I swear it was out of a movie we both said Lets go at the same time and ran over to the railing looking how we could get down to where those people were. To set the stage the people were standing on the edge of a canyon and looking down at the bottom where a munch of water is piled up. So, I ask my dad if we can go, and he was right there with us. We were up so high looking down on the people who managed to get down to the bottom and swim. Now keep in mind the water was not extremely high up so the rocks and stuff were showing so we could go and stand and take pictures and we took plenty of them. While this is happening, we see another family come down. They go straight to the edge looking quite strangly like they were up to something. My dad turns on a video for my grandmother when the dad of the group comes up to us and says.

“Hey how deep you think that is down there. “I look at him and say,

“I mean it looks pretty deep to me.” I said this not knowing his intentions, but that was enough for him because he took off his shirt and jumped. My heart dropped I said to myself, “This can’t be happing right now. I’m going to see a dead man,” BUT thank the lord because when he hit, he came right back up and said I’m okay. My dad looked at us and said that man is a physco. We got out of there and started down a trail that we had heard lead to a good swimming hole. So, we went and after about twenty or so minutes of walking we made it to the hippie hole. It was this big rocky landscape that was about forty percent covered in water which lead to a small (a pretty small) waterfall. We made it down to the area where it was about knee deep and we let our dog get a little wet and talked for quite a while. Until we looked behind us and we saw boys jumping off of what looked like some tall rocks, so we went and checked it out. My dad made sure it was deep enough before he even thought about us doing it. In the end he let us. Honestly when I got up there, I would say it was all of like a 20 ft drop and when I say it was a rush, I meant it was a rush. Then Those same people who jumped off the canyon climb up about two times higher than we were and jumped off. Now there was a good 30 or 40 people there watching. So then other people go up there and not one person gets hurt. So, Chase and I go and check it. We get up there its easily a close 50-foot drop. Now we got video of it but when we went up there it was one of the scariest things I have ever done. It felt like I was falling for ten seconds. When you think about it ten seconds isn’t that much, but oh my lord If you heard the smack on the water you would have known. It was honestly on of the most fun family trips I have ever been on. I am so thankful for my family and everything they do for me. Those were my adventures at little river canyon.