If you kept up with the team at the recent Michigan Expedition race, you'd have noticed a somewhat cryptic reference to an encounter we had with a mushroom hunter. Well, now that we are back safe and sound in the south, we can speak up without fear of reprisal.

As we were trekking along in the middle of the night, a speeding truck came up to us and stopped abruptly. In the dim light we could make out a young shirtless driver who had a somewhat strange look in his eyes.

"You all looking for mushrooms?" he asks?

"Nope" we answer.

"Well, you better be careful of the brown ones, you have to boil them a while before you eat them."

At this point we were somewhat confused, as we weren't experience mushroom hunters, but further research has show that some poisonous species may be rendered safe by parboiling. But that's another story.

After this short encounter, the fellow drives off down the road and we continue on our way. Not 20 seconds later a gunshot rings out! Bo, having the greatest sense of self preservation, makes a beeline for the closest ditch and throws himself in it. Meanwhile, Paul, Michele and I look around and start to ask each other if that was a gunshot, and was he really shooting at us?

My own 2 days with no sleep middle of the night race rationalization was that any person in a vehicle moving away from a target at 400 yards had pretty much no chance of hitting it. What was there to fear? As I thought this, we heard about 6 more shots, although these were farther away, and of even less concern to my tired and confused mind.

We just hoped there wasn't a team that close behind us. Luckily, there wasn't. One thing I can tell you, we certainly got a little quickness back in our step and we weren't sleepy for several more hours.