Chapter 16: Excitement Never Ends

Summer was drawing to a close so we decided to go on a vacation. With our Winnebago Journey we could go anywhere we wanted. We tossed around several destinations and ended up deciding to tour some of the country instead of a single destination. Since it would be a household vacation, everybody had an input on the points of interest we would visit.

I wanted to see Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, Grace wanted to see Colonial Williamsburg, Kim wanted to go to Disneyland in Orlando, and Chris voted for Key West Florida. Her three girls also wanted Disneyland. We came to the conclusion that we could do it all. The whole trip would take the better part of two weeks and was destined to be interesting. With eight people living together in the camper it could be a lot of fun, or it could be a disaster with frayed nerves and short tempers. Time would tell.

Did I say eight people? Doesn't add up right? Wrong! Unbeknownst to Chris, I secretly invited George to come with us. Chris was due for a surprise when we got ready to go.

The first thing we had to do was to divvy up sleeping space. The bedroom in the back could sleep three people if they were well acquainted. There was only one group of three fitting that requirement so Grace, Kim and I would sleep in there. Since our relationship included some strenuous stress-testing of the mattress it stood to reason that it would be best done behind closed doors. My practical side came up with that plan. My libido just said "Yippee".

With food preparation and storage facilities aboard, we were basically self sufficient and didn't need to hop from campground to campground unless we wanted to. We would have to stop periodically to empty the holding tank and restock some perishables but that was no big deal.

George got the camper prepped for the trip and parked it out front by the drawbridge. He managed to sneak his suitcases aboard without anyone seeing it. We got all loaded up and hopped on board. George was standing at the bottom of the drawbridge and waved goodbye to us as we started out. I looked at Chris and noticed that she had a little tear in her eye. I made the announcement that I had forgotten something so I drove around the circular driveway and stopped at the drawbridge. I opened the door and George climbed aboard and took a seat next to Chris. The look on her face was priceless. It was a combination of confusion, elation and relief.

George turned to Chris. "Mind if I hold your hand, ma'am?"

"You can and stop calling me ma'am. My name is Chris."

"Yes ma'am. Oops ... Yes, Chris."

He took her hand and they leaned together with big lovey-dovey smiles on their faces. It wasn't but a few miles down the road when I looked back and he had his arm around Chris and she had her head resting on his shoulder. They looked like a pair of teenagers at the drive-in. A few more miles down the road I heard the TV come on with the cartoon network showing some silly thing I think was called "Sponge-Bob Square-pants" or something like that. Vicky and Brittany loved it. Kim and Cathy tolerated it but gave out with an occasional giggle. Grace was up front with me and Chris didn't even know what was on. Were it not for Chris, George would have been bored out of his gourd, but then, she was the reason he had come along.

We were making good time and should be at Mystic by late afternoon. I looked in my side-view mirror and noticed a station wagon about to overtake us. As it passed us I looked down into the car and was quite shocked. The back seats had been folded down and there was a mattress in the back. That was not too unusual except that there was an adult man and a very naked little girl, who I would guess, was about twelve years old. As I watched the brief show it was apparent that the girl was in the process of being raped. The look on her face as she struggled was one of stark terror.

The car passed us and pulled into the same lane in front of us. I hollered to Grace to call 9-1-1 and tell them what was going on. I sped up to stay a short distance behind them as we sped down the highway. Grace told me that there was not a police unit nearby so it would take some time. I decided that we would have to do something right away so I told everyone in the camper to sit down and buckle up. Grace looked back and told me when they were all buckled in. I pulled up alongside the car and started gradually forcing them over to the shoulder of the road. We were fast approaching an overpass and the car was fast running out of road. They had to hit the brakes to keep from smashing into the bridge abutment. As the car stopped I also came to a halt. Just as we stopped George popped his seatbelt and made a mad dash out our side door.

I put the camper in park and was right on George's tail. George ripped open the driver's door and I grabbed the guy and threw him down to the ground. George opened the back door and grabbed the second guy by the hair and threw him to the ground pouncing on him and holding him down. I hollered to Grace to bring me some ropes so we could tie the two bastards up. We shortly had them hog-tied so they could not get away.

Grace and Chris saw that the bad guys were immobilized so they came out to tend to the poor girl. Grace brought out a blanket to wrap the girl in and had her get in our camper. The little girl was hysterical and crying that she wanted her mommy. We tried the best we could to calm her down explaining that she had been rescued. She did eventually calm down a little bit but was still shaking and sobbing.

Grace got back to the 9-1-1 operator and was told that a state police car was about two minutes away. Grace told them that the perpetrators were in custody. It was about a minute and a half later that three police cars and an ambulance came roaring up with lights and sirens blaring. In short order the two prisoners were cuffed and strapped into the back seat of the patrol car.

It took the better part of two hours for the officers to make out their reports during which all our heart rates returned to normal. The lead officer came over to me and shook my hand telling me that it was considered a job well-done. He went on to tell me that those two had been kidnapping and raping young girls for a few months.

That particular girl had been taken from a church picnic and her mother was frantic. She went from panic to elation when she heard that her daughter was okay and had been rescued by none other than Arthur Sherwood. Having my ego stroked like that made me want to embroider a big "S" on my shirt.

One thing I didn't notice was that while all this was going on: Kim was leaning out of the camper window snapping away with her camera. When all was said and done we got back into the camper. We started back on our trip and Kim was busily downloading the pictures to my laptop. I made a mental note that when we stopped for the night I would review the shots on the big screen TV.

Kim was coming along nicely as an opportunistic photographer. It turned out that Cathy was glued to Kim's side watching how she did her camera thing. Seemed we had another photographer in the making.

When we got to Mystic, I parked the camper in the back of their parking lot. Everybody was anxious to see the seaport so we locked up the camper and went in. I paid for a family group membership so all eight of us could come and go as we wanted. Since there were a variety of things everybody wanted to see we made arrangements to meet at the front gate at closing time. I had previously purchased eight of those little walkie-talkies so we were only a button-push away from contact. Grace, Kim, Cathy and I formed a group to see the sights. George, Chris, Vicky and Brittany formed their own group and headed off to tour the place.