The Travel Trees

Watch out for those trees that uproot themselves, next thing you know they might be in front of your car.

Traveling with the top down of the convertible driving along a country road with a friend nicknamed dog friend, the wind noise wasn't enough to drown out sounds from the forest woods nor did the rumble of the car do so either. I'm driving, dog friend passenger side, we had just left Merryville on our way to Slater. We were just outside of town just past a stretch of forest woods when both of us thought we heard a noise from the woods right side of us, and dog friend saw something. He said to me, "Hey! Something fell over back there." I replied, "Where?" He said, "Just back there, and it moved!" "What'd ya mean moved?" I replied. "Something fell, then top of it moved, like it moved after it fell." "Okay, let's go back." said back to him.

I slowed the car down, stopped to turn around, doing so and drove back to where dog friend said he saw something, where the noise we both heard as well. Just us on the road so I slowed down again, as the car stopped, "Crraakk! Crack, crack, crack, SNAP! EEEYYAAmmm! BAM!" Both of us heard that noise. "That's a tree fallin'!" said dog friend. Then, "Bushamp! Booshamp! Stomp! Stomp! Rustle! Rustle!" Then those noises stopped. "Is somebody cuttin' trees?!" dog friend said. "I don't hear no noise, no one sawing, don't see anybody there." said to him. Then another noise, sounding like someone prying a board up off a floor, or pulling stuck nails out of one, "Ccrrreeeekkkkk, cccrrreeekkk, eeeEeeeEeeeEEE!" I started laughing, hearing that, then dog friend, "OH MY GOD! LOOK AT THAT!!" I quit laughing, seeing what he saw.

What I saw was a tree, still slightly moving, as if it has risen up from the ground, where there was a clearing between other trees, now there's a tree there. You could see it midway up to it's top, with many branches swaying, the trunk slightly moving. The high grass there prevented us from seeing farther down to the ground. "Mother dog," I said, "Nooo wway." What happened next was unbelievable.

That tree started Moving! Same noises, "Bushamp! Booshamp! Stomp! Stomp! Rustle! Rustle!" It was coming toward us! We were far enough away with the car distance wise from the road, when that tree cleared the high grass, it's roots were moving! That's the noises! The tree was throwing it's roots up and over like someone rowing a boat on water with oars, moving along like that. You could see dirt falling off the roots as the tree moved along. The top branches swayed forward, as if to help give it momentum, almost a helpful rocking motion as it's roots moved that kept it from falling over forward or backward or toppling sideways.

It was still far enough away when dog friend yelled "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" The car was still running, was in park after stopping it, had stopped the turned-round direction, I put it in drive, foot on the peddle away we went back the direction to Merryville. Dog friend was looking back, I'm watching in the mirrors, the tree now was in the road where we had been. It shambled around sort of as to turn towards us, as we went away with the car. "They'll Never Believe Us in Merryville!" dog friend loudly said, "I'M not believin' it!" saying back to him.

On the drive back we didn't say a word more in the car. Awestruck and bewilderment is what I felt. Dog friend seemed dumbfounded. "We gotta tell somebody." dog friend said finally as we approached town, "What if one of them goes in the road and lays down, car comes along." "I tell you what," I said, "Let's go to the mill, the lumber place, better yet, the Forest Service." "Yeah, FS will know," dog friend said, "We'll make it a paranormal thing we saw."

That's what we did. I knew where the Forest Service building was in town, and drove there. Arriving there parked the car in their small lot, turned off the engine. We just looked at each other. "What are we gonna say?" I said." "Just like a Bigfoot, tell em," dog friend said, "that's what BFRO does. They're used to it now. It's on the net, like that road story. Can't remember the name of it." "You mean the Beast of Bray Road," I said, "Hey! That gives me an idea, Ufos!" "UFOs!!" said dog friend. "Yeah. Nothing to do with that but reports. File a report. Do it on paper. Write it down turn it in. We report it just the same as police do with witness statements. This is what happened, what we experienced, or you and I since it's each of us." I said. "Okay then. It's either that or tell em' first up, then paper trail it." dog friend said. "Weelll, if we do say somethin' first, it might stop there. They'll not even bother making out a report. Worst that happen with a report is they'll toss it, throw it away, but since it's official worst that will happen is it'll get buried. But it will stay on file for a few." I said. "Makes sense," dog friend said, "Or we can just forget about it." "What about the tree in the road?" I said. "Yeeahh, better do it," said dog friend, "Don't want nobody wreaking their car killed by a walking tree."

So we went in. There was a man at a desk behind a counter. I spoke first, my angle was we had a paranormal encounter on the highway out of town by the forest woods, which is their territory. He paid no mind of it, just said okay, gave us paperwork to do just what I wanted. Get it on paper. We went to a desk area, small room off from the main lobby, because I told the clerk this has to be now, right away, tho didn't say why readily. He again just agreed, okay, took us to the room. Both of us wrote down just what happened. "Ready?" I said to dog friend. "Yep." said dog friend. We did the paperwork just in minutes, now out the door back to the counter by the lobby.

We handed the paperwork over to the clerk. He sat down, read mine, then dog friend's. His eyes and face mannerisms became more than stoic. It boarded on concern. "This just happen?!" he said borderlining not unbelief, more towards real concern. I looked at him almost surprised. "Yeah." I said. "Just outside of town, road to Slater." dog friend said. He got up, took the paperwork, went to a door, knocked on the door, heard a voice say come in, opened the door, went in. What must have been ten minutes go by, door opens, out comes another man, behind him the clerk. He comes over to us. "I'm Bob Clemmor, district commander for The Forest Service this area and territory. Was there anyone hurt? Did you guys get hurt?" "No." I spoke up replying to him. "Just the two of us on the road when it happened." said dog friend. "Nobody else? No other traffic?" Bob Clemmor said. "Just us." both dog friend and me spoke almost at the same time. "Thank god. Good." said Bob Clemmor.

"I want both of you, to not say anything about this right now. I'll explain later, know you're going to have questions, so bear with me till later." Bob Clemmor said upon which he turned to the clerk saying, "Give them our card that has the number." The man went to his desk, opened a drawer, took out two cards, came over and handed them to us. "Both of you just go on about your business but for now keep this to yourself. We're going to deal with this immediately. After the fire call me. Don't ask questions now because we don't have time. I'll talk to you gentleman later." said Bob Clemmor. He immediately left walking briskly fast back to the open door where he came from, shut the door.

"You guys have to leave now. Just go. Bob will explain everything. We're closing the office for the day now. It's going to get a little busy. We have work to do. Oh! And don't drive the road to Slater back out of town." the clerk man said, upon which he walked away toward that office door Bob Clemmor went in. Dog friend and I said nothing further, obviously we did have questions, we went back out left the building back to the convertible. Walking the sidewalk toward the car "Well def somethin's up." dog friend said. "Yep. Surprised the heck outta me, dog. I was expecting smirks, giggles, and an alien abduction frame of mind." I said.

We got in the convertible, me behind the wheel still, "You know that other way there, the one over the bridge to Slater. It's a bit out of the way. That'll take us around away from where we went thru. I think we should avoid that whole area for now." I said. "Yeah. That's 214, take that. We'll steer clear of whatever going to happen FS is gonna do." said dog friend. Upon which I started the convertible, left the parking lot and proceeded thru Merryville east out of town instead of south as we did.

Fast forward more than a couple weeks later. I'm speaking on a personal note remembering this incident, my name is Jeff, I was the driver that day. Right after we left Merryville on the way to Slater we found out there was a large forest fire south of town. Whole sections of forest mysteriously caught fire. They even called in the National Guard and the military. Newspaper accounts said they were on training maneuvers, somehow during harmless fire fight maneuvers a fire started. They were using flame thrower tanks and military grade bulldozers during their procedures. What's weird is the reports from locals, people living that area about the large numbers of water trucks, fire fighting equipment. No business or personal property was damaged. If you drove the road to Slater south of town afterward, it was near barren land, scorched from fire. The land looked like it had rained down fire, burned everything. There were remnants of trees that were piled up by bulldozers, burnt to ashes. Weird too is the local talk of land owners that area seeing military 6 x 6's traveling that former forest, with soldiers with flame throwers. Least that's what they thought they saw. What WAS never seen again is what dog friend and I saw. Nor anyone else.

I did call Bob Clemmor, dog friend did too. Bob related we weren't the only ones to have had an incident with "walking trees" and that it was an isolated happening. He believed both of us, would talk no further. Bob said the fire was just a coincidence, a freak happening. Bob did say this to both of us, because he told the same identical almost script response. He said, "You know those fires they've had out in California thru the years. Those big forest fires, makes you wonder why that's happening don't it."

Taking all this in as the driver that day, my opinion, anything like that, gov and authority know, are aware, they may not know what it is, but are able to "take care of it." Like an alleged rogue Bigfoot causing trouble, military gets involved goes in kills the creature, disposes of it, problem solved. I think that's what happened south of Merryville. In all the years I've known now, not once have I ever heard of or found out about any incidents with "walking trees."

It's been many years since dog friend and I parted ways, my skills and employment took me out west to a job as an Engineering Technician servicing electrical and electronics for the controller boxes for the oil wells in the fields of Wyoming. Dog friend was a radio dj, took up a job at a station in Michigan. To this day wonder about the sighting we saw, and the how and where Dogman started.

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blooper edit

Once driving a cover table, ha ha, laugh, the spell check converted the word, he he, convertible, driving a car open top, down a country road with dog friend. It wasn't fast enough to wind nosie, what! No. Noise. Wasn't driving fast enough to cancel out noise