A Steem Adventure: The Temple Rescue

So I decided today's the day.

I'm going to get in an Actifit routine. I brushed up on the "rules". A quick scan of the white paper tells me I need at least 5,000 steps to qualify for any sort of token reward. Once I hit 10,000 steps, I've hit the max reward possible.

Hmmm. What's that mean?

A Google search later, and I'm hip to the fact that 5,000 steps is approximately 2.5 miles.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...

2.5 miles. Okay, yeah. I can do this.

Right?

I put on my Steemstyle shirt. What's Steemstyle? Sorry, that's another post.

With the Steem icon blazoned across my chest, and the Actifit app glowing bright on my phone, all I needed now was a destination!

I grabbed the youngest kid, we hopped in the car, and I drove us to the Cambodian Buddhist temple. What's great about the temple is that it's like entering another world. One minute you're in a suburban residential area...then there's industrial warehouses and office buildings...and suddenly you're Indiana Jones. There's golden statues and ornately carved walls. Everything looks mysterious and beautiful.

(Plus there's a TON of critical in-game locations for Pokemon Go and Wizards Unite GPS mobile games!)

I'm not Buddhist, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate all the carefully crafted scenery.

I started to snap some photos in between my manly power-walking and masterful spell casting.

It was soooo hot outside. But the kid and I had Taco Bell freeze slushies, haha.

We walked. We slurped on our cold, refreshing beverages, and enjoyed the many statues.

We wandered up to a huge, gated section. Looking past the metal bars, we gazed upon a huge mini-lake filled with lily pads and foliage. On previous visits here, I believe we had seen large turtles there.

I snapped a photo with my phone.

Suddenly, a little black dog came racing up to us, barked, then ran around the corner of the enclosure. We looked at each other and decided to follow the dog. At first we thought the dog was scared and running away from us. But oddly enough, it had stopped and seemed to be calmly waiting for us to catch up.

Huh. Weird.

We casually walked around the side of the "lake", and that's when we heard something. It was faint. It sounded like a dog in pain...or pleading for help? It wasn't the dog we just followed (although looking around now, it appeared to have run away). The yelps were filled with panic and/or anguish.

It was my son that spotted the source of the barely audible cries for help.

In the distance, we saw what must have been a puppy that slipped through the bars in the gate and stumbled into the water. The little guy appeared to have trouble keeping its head above water. The ledge was too high for it to reach!

My son and I scrambled to look for a way through the gate. There seemed to be no clear entry to get into the area where the dog was struggling. There was nobody around. Any custodians of the temple were way over at the entrance (which would require a sprint to the car and a drive to the other side of the premises). I wasn't sure how long the dog could last.

That's when we noticed some stone steps, overgrown by grass but still visible. We tracked the steps to a corner of the surrounding gate. That's where we found a latch (that was unlocked!). After some quick fiddling, I swung open the gate and raced down the steps to the edge of the water.

I didn't realize how deep the water was. The poor dog was clearly cold and scared, paddling to stay afloat.

I reached down. The puppy was tired and wet, but otherwise he seemed to be okay.

For the remainder of our visit, the thankful doggo (as my 11 year old son likes to call them) followed us around, happily drying his fur in the warm sun.

He was extremely friendly and welcomed the attention that my kid gave him.

I was soooo tempted to take him home, haha! He had no collar, and it was unclear whether the groundskeepers held any ownership of the dogs, cats, and other animals that seemed to roam freely about. I'm assuming there was an understanding between them.

Finally, it was time to leave.

We made our way to the car. The dog followed.

When my son tried to close the passenger door, the dog attempted to climb in with us. "Sorry, doggo. You can't come with us..." Once the door clicked shut, we looked out the window to say goodbye.

But he was gone. We looked a full 360 degrees. He was nowhere to be seen. We were in a parking lot, so there was nowhere to "hide" other than UNDER the car.

Great. I saved the dog, just so I can run over it?

I opened my door and got out. I looked under the car. "Hey, doggy..."

"Doggy?"

There was no dog under the car. There was no dog anywhere around the car or in the parking lot.

Um...

The dog had...disappeared?

What's going on???

My kid got out and looked too. Okay, so it was a magic ghost dog.

While leaving the temple in our car, my son noticed a distant speck of what might have been the dog running through the nearby field. It was too far away to know for sure.

I didn't get in my 5,000 steps. No Actifit tokens for me. But that's okay.

Steem got me outside. I had a good time with my son.

And we saved the life of a magic ghost dog.

It was a good day.