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July 26, 2010
I was in a beautiful forest in the middle of Arkansas, a temperate forest, riding my horse when I saw a praying mantis. I got off my horse to look at it. When I got to it, I heard a deep growl. I flipped around, and looked straight into the eyes of a mountain lion. Achoo, I sneezed! I heard a shrill whinny, then a thump. When I turned back around, I saw the mountain lion dragging my horse away.

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July 26, 2010
I was trying not to panic. I had found some leaves, and I am using them to write this journal, and I found a pencil in my saddlebag. I do not know how long I will be here, but I am thinking quite a while before I’m found. My eyelids were heavy. Before I tried to go to sleep, I figured I would explore my surroundings tomorrow.

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July 27, 2010
A nudging on my side awakened me. I gasped! A large whitetail buck ran away. I was excited, and famished. It seemed like it was about 60 Degrees out right now, and it made me cold. I started exploring. I walked for a while, and then started running when I saw a large drop-off. When I got to it, I looked down to see what there was. Very far down at the bottom was a river. I, frightened, backed up. I then saw a large log that fell over the trench, leading to the other side. I safely made my way across it, and then continued onward.

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July 27, 2010
I reached a damp clearing. This would be where I would sleep tonight if I were not found. I started to pick up branches to build a tent against a gigantic oak tree, when I spotted a blackberry bush. After I ate some blackberries, I finished making the tent. Then I crawled in it and went to sleep.

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August 11, 2010
14 days have gone by. I discovered a grove of white pines to the left of my clearing, and a lake to the very south. The lake has an overhanging ledge made of limestone to its left.

Every day I have run into animals. Yesterday I saw chipmunks. Through out the other days, I have seen many others. There has been deer in the forest and meadows, bluegill in the lake, hawks and gray squirrels in the clearings. But for the last 3 days, the cold weather has made all of the blackberry bushes loose their berries. I have been eating bluegill, catching them with the stick trap I made, and I have even taken down the buck I saw when I first got here. I have tamed the mountain lion that killed my horse. The chipmunks have been killed from the overgrowing vines of thorns; the moss is drying up, and the lichen with it. I have gotten syrup from the maples and acorns from the oaks.

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August 13, 2010
In the past 2 days, I have stopped eating animals, for a natural disease named black mouth is going around. I have been eating plants like ferns and pears. With nothing to do, I climbed into my cliff shelter and went to sleep.

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August 13, 2010
What’s that noise? It woke me up from my sleeping time. I looked up, where I found the source. A plane! I remembered that I had found a shiny thing on the cliffs during last night. I picked it up, shined it in the sky, and the plane soon landed in the lake.

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August 14, 2010

When I got home, I researched the forest. When I did so, I started to miss the forest a lot. I missed the smell of the cedars. I missed the cliff and the animals. But most of all, the feel of the wilderness under my bare feet.