@mazemoore - MAZE

The Biltmore. I know I fucked up, don't need to hear the hindsight advice. This is just a story of gratefulness. In the summer of 2018 me, my wife and her girlfriend, and my two dogs rented an AirBnB in Asheville. We wanted to visit the Biltmore. It was record setting scorching hot. We arrived at the Biltmore around noon, I brought my two dogs because I read online that pets are welcome. I left my phone in my truck and gave my wife my wallet so she could buy tickets to go inside. I started walking my dogs around the back of the mansion. My dogs and I found ourselves on a trail behind the mansion. It was confusing. I figured it made a circle so we followed the trail. About ten minutes later I couldn't see the mansion anymore and I had no idea where we were. I saw a wooden sign that pointed to a winery. No labels of distance, just pointed in one direction so we went. We walked another 5-6 miles completely lost, overheating, my dogs were starting to really dehydrate and I was starting to get really nervous. Nobody in sight. My dogs kept stopping, we were on a trail and couldn't see anything. Finally I saw a hotel and winery in the distance so we kept walking but my dogs were not doing well. Neither was I. We made it up the hill to a driveway in front of the winery. I begged someone to borrow their phone and tried to call my wife but her phone was dead. We just sat there, my dogs were not doing well. Eyes purple, tongues blue. I was begging for help but was not getting any. People thought I was crazy. A shuttle bus came and it said that it was going back to the Biltmore. At this point I had to carry my dogs on the bus and I did, one by one. The shuttle driver told us to get off, said no pets allowed. I explained the situation but he would not listen. I explained again but the fucking idiot would not let us ride on the shuttle. I told him that if either of my dogs died that I was going to come back and kill him. He called for security, I was happy. But all they did was force me and my dogs off the shuttle. I started begging people for a ride to no avail. I tried for like 20 minutes, no one would give us a ride. I found one woman willing to give us a bottle of water. After pouring it on my dogs' heads we started back up the trail. My dogs could barely stand but I didn't know what else to do. About two miles into the trail my big Doberman started walking sideways and then fell down. He got up, turned his head, looked at me, and then rolled sideways down a very large ditch. He just gave up and rolled into a huge ditch near the trail. I climbed down to get him but he was going unconscious and it was really steep. I tied my other dog to him and then ran as fast as I could until I hit a street. I stopped traffic and started screaming for help. A man and woman in a pickup stopped, listened to me and offered to help. The man told me to get in the pickup and his wife stayed in the road to get more help. He drove us through the forrest, down a massive hill, through bush, straight to my dogs. My girl was awake but my boy was not. The man had water and we started dumping it on him. We tried lifting him up but he is 175lbs and we couldn't get him up the ditch. It was very very steep. Next thing I know there are 4-5 cars/trucks pulling up right next to us, in the grass in the middle of nowhere. They all had water, they all started helping us. It was the best feeling about humanity that I have ever had. I still get overwhelmed when I think about it. One guy had an entire cooler full of water and we dumped all of it on my boy. He started to wake up and about four guys using blankets helped me get him out of the ditch. I sat there out of the ditch with about 10-12 strangers praying and helping us. No words. When my dogs were able we lifted them in back of a pickup truck and headed back to the Biltmore. I was sitting in the back with both, both were asleep when we stopped at a light. A huge brown bear came down the hill when we were stopped, came up to the truck, looked over the bed, saw both dogs asleep, and went on his way. My dogs stayed asleep. True story. Yeah I know I screwed up, it was all on me, but thank God that there are still good people in this world.