During our first Summer <a href="https://casualweirdness.life/articles/essays/making-a-life-off-grid">boondocking on the Mesa in Taos New Mexico</a>, I never slept very well because I was constantly on edge about people messing with our stuff outside while I slept. We're way out in the middle of nowhere, in a community of people who are a mix of salt-of-the-earth hippies, the conspiracy theorists, and relatively normal people. Ya know, as far as "normal" goes on the mesa, which isn't sayin' a lot. There's a strong sense of community there, but it definitely feels a little more like Mad Max than the American Dream, in-spite of the fact that many of the people out there love it. In-fact, I love it there, but it didn't change the fact that, at night, every noise outside had me peeking out the window.

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picture of a black truck parked behind a travel trailer with a dirt driveway in the foreground and a deep blue sky with huge fluffy white and blue-grey clouds on the left side stretching around to the right

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One night at about 3 AM, while we were parked on our small parcel of land in Taos, I woke up to the distinct sound of plastic sliding along my gravel driveway. It would intermittently start, then stop, then start again. After listening for a few minutes, and concluding that it was definitely not the wind this time, I woke Kate up and asked her to listen. She started to say "Alex, it's just the wind" when the sound happened again. She then said "Okay...that's weird"

So, I jumped out of bed and peeked out the window, and I could not see anything because, again, we're on the freaking Mesa and it's super duper dark there. So, I shut the door, grab a kitchen knife (lol) as well as a flashlight and open the door. I flash the light around the area and say "Who's out there?!" at this point fully panicked and expecting a zombie or something to come crawling at me.

In response to my call, I hear nothing more than a shuffling sound, and it was walking toward me, but I still couldn't see anything. I promptly shut my door, locked it half-panicked, looked at Kate and said "wtf do I do?!"

I ran over to the window next to my door, turned on my camper light, and looked outside, and laughed. I looked at Kate and said "You're not gonna fuckin' believe this."

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Yep, that's right. Donkeys. Two donkeys. They apparently got out, and were roaming the area. We shoo'd them off and let the community know - apparently they belong to one of the locals who located them and brought them home the next day.