Dad relieved after North Liberty boy found

UPDATE: Nolan Sojka just wanted to go camping.

“Not today,” his father told him when the 4-year-old woke up a little after 6 a.m.

Nolan headed back toward his room. Preschool didn't start for a while.

“He went back to bed, or so we thought,” Mike Sojka said. “I went to get him up for preschool and noticed the back door was cracked open.”

North Liberty police, Johnson County deputies and several neighbors scoured the area near their house at 310 Penn Ridge Dr. for the next 90 minutes. The blond-haired boy, still dressed in his pajamas, was gone with his Buzz Lightyear sleeping bag.

“Panic, fear…it's just the worst feeling in the world,” Sojka said. “Nobody wants to go through that.”

Police found Nolan inside a friend's house, about 100 yards away, asleep. He had stopped at a neighbor's house first, but then ran to a friend's house. No one was home, and the front door was locked, but he got in through a back door.

Before Thursday, Nolan had never snuck out of the house, Sojka said.

Sojka, sitting on his front steps after the ordeal, thanked his neighbors in the subdivision.

“Our neighborhood is just wonderful, and our neighbors, I can't thank them enough for all the help they provided,” Sojka said. “Everybody was out looking.”