[fastfredracing]

Yesterday, I turned 42. Took the family up to the Allegheny National Forest for a nice weekend of camping/hiking, and just to get away. We used to spend quite a bit of time in the area, but have not been there since the little one was born ( 6 years ). There had always been some natural gas wells in the area, and I am sure a lot of the little access roads in the forest are for the gas companies maintenance crews.
Upon arriving to an area where we frequently camped, we were surprised to see much much more nat. gas activity, wells, pipelines, new roads, and gas company workers everywhere. Many of the areas were cleared, and were littered with pumps/pipelines/ holding tanks etc.
We drove a few miles back in to one of our favorite areas, and found a great spot that we had stayed at before. Took about an hour to unpack the Jeep, set up our new tent, get a fire going, and have some lunch.
At this time, I started to feel real sleepy ( rare for me, I never nap during the day) , but it became overwhelming , and I laid down , and took a nap. 30 minutes later, my son is bugging me to take a hike, and he won't let up , so I try to wake up, and I find that I am weak/dizzy, and starting to get a pounding headache. I finally got up, grabbed the BB gun, and took off with the kid. As I hiked away from our site, I started to feel better, and was thinking that that little power nap did me good. We took a nice little hike, he fell in the water , got good and muddy, and we shot some BB's. We came back a different way, down the road, and as I got within 50 or so yards of our camp, I could smell the strong odor of Nat. Gas. There was a large holding tank of some sorts, and it was clearly venting out of it's cap. I am not sure it is supposed to do this or not, but the gas was coming out fast. I could smell it 50 yards away, and you could clearly see the vapor trail of the gas escaping out of the vent, and you could hear the sound of the gas moving through the pipes, and hissing out the top. This tank was approx 50- 75 yards from our camp site, but we did not see it until we hiked out . It was down over a hillside from us.
Upon arriving back at the camp, I found Traci asleep in the tent. I woke her up, and she stated that she did not feel so well, she also had a headache, and was queasy, and weak. We hung around for the rest of the afternoon, but we both felt weak, and sickly, and both of our headaches were increasing in severity.
We made some dinner, and ate, but both of us were so weak , that we took another nap after dinner. I tried to get up after my little nap, and again was feeling very weak, and the severity of my headache was becoming unbearable.
We were both feeling pretty bad, and decided to just pack up a and go home ( a 4 hour jaunt) . As we were packing up and trying to figure out what was making us sick ( we never smelled any hint of gas in our camping area) . I told her of the gas tank I had come across when out on our hike, and on our way out, I drove her to the site, and the smell of gas was very strong as we came up on it in our Jeep, and you could distinctly hear the hiss of the gas escaping over the noise of the jeep running. She became even more nauseous in the presence of this smell, and almost vomited. So we leave the forest, and within 30 minutes of leaving the area, we both are starting to feel better. Within an hour of driving with the windows open ( beautiful drive through the mountains with the super moon up in the sky) we again felt better, and normal again.
Just could not believe that we were suffering symptoms of gas poisoning , but it was the only thing that made any sense. Got home , looked up the symptoms , and sure enough. Headaches, nausea, dizzyness, weakness etc. I guess it was good we came home, who knows, we may have not woken up this morning if we stayed the night.
Of all places, went up to the mountains to get some fresh air, and turns out I am safer in the shop.