A Family Adventure

The kitten incidents are far removed, but I am now seeking blog solace in yet another Texas town (besides my own.) Another adventure trip, this time with my family on a weekend adventure planned by our own private travel agent, Agent Dad. As usual, he braved hell and high water to get us out of town and find some hiking and good food—two ingredients to an enjoyable vacation.

Mom got the weekend off and the plan was a camping trip in Arkansas. But as it often happens with us, storm clouds caught wind of our sunny plans and gathered for miles around to settle in a steadily spinning system directly above every camp ground in Arkansas and Oklahoma, delivering a generous supply of wetness. Camping plans were squelched. Travel plans—not so much.

Camp grounds in Texas are reservation-only and this weekend the nearbyish ones were full. The Hilton sometimes runs rooms on Priceline.com for ridiculously low rates, thus luring unsuspecting bumpkins through its doors with Playmate coolers full of breakfast to be duped by their stupid internet fees. And consideration of these facts may explain why my family is presently camped out in the Hilton in Austin, within view of the airport and a pleasant show of airplane departures.

We don’t “belong” here, but this is, after all, a free society depending on how you look at it, but at least we gave the bellboy some entertainment.

This morning we ate our nutri-grain bars and drank some kind of fortified breakfast drink fortified with enough chocolate to wake us up, and then we drove to Enchanted Rock, a few hours from here.

This rock is enchanted because it is a solid granite dome-like formation that rises 425 feet in the air like a miniature Ayers Rock. Unlike Ayers Rock, you can walk up it because it curves gently on the sides. From a distance you can see the people moving around on top like little bugs.

As we came within sight of it, Dad explained to Ethan about climbing it. “And you have to be careful up there on top, that you don’t fall,” he said.

“Well, I’ve never fallen off a cliff before in my life,” Ethan replied matter-of-factly, as if to say how could you doubt me when I’ve always proved myself so responsible?

“In all your six years…” Dad added.

“But I did fall off the couch once.”

We climbed the rock, which was like a giant tombstone with prickly pear cactus sticking up in patches, which is surprising when I remember that it was a rock and had no soil to speak of. I ate a prickly pear fruit not long ago with taco salad for supper because I got curious while shopping with Dad and we bought a couple of them. It was full of seeds but otherwise very tasty. The skin is thick and green and slimy, and the insides are a watery, sort of green version of pomegranates. I could never decide whether I liked it, so I kept eating it until it was gone. (Other people helped.)

But when I saw bulbs of prickly pear fruit sticking off the cacti on top of Enchanted Rock, I suddenly decided I liked them and desperately wanted one. The only problem is that gathering fauna and flora in a state park is prohibited by law and I already have this problem with park rangers. Actually it is their problem. They’re the ones having heart attacks over innocent children idly plucking an oak leaf. But I have bad memories and there are better reasons to get thrown in jail, so I didn’t think I would pick a fruit.

Dad, however, found a prickly pear already plucked just sitting there on the ground like it was waiting for me. Last I had seen the Park Rangers, they were sitting in their cute little uniforms having lunch at a picnic table, and one of them was having a smoke, so I figured they were not after me and this particular prickly pear. So I sat my bum on the rather stony granite and started prying the thing open.

I forgot about the “prickly” part. The ones at the store were, as I always suspected of the other Walmart vegetation, genetically engineered for physical perfection rather than taste, and therefore had no prickles. This is what they would like to do to people too, but I doubt it is working.

But I found the prickles. Every prickle spot generously gave me seven or eight stickers. So I plucked them all out and then shaved the outside with my water bottle cap. Then I started prying again and got slime all over my fingers. My labor revealed a disappointingly small, hard lump of fruit, which tasted like most unripe fruit tastes. So I threw it in the little pool of water I was sitting by.

The rest of the afternoon I sat on the rock with Mom enjoying the view of Texas (well, you know, some of Texas since Texas is so big and you can’t see all of it even if you climb up on a very big piece of granite.) I was going to go hiking around the base of the rock with Dad and Mattie and Ethan (Connor stayed home and missed out.) But Mom and I don’t get to talk together much anymore when she is working and I am going to school, so we took advantage of that instead. And she said she was hoping to lay out on a sunny rock this weekend and just enjoy it, and look at the rock God gave her…a 425 foot tall one.

For supper we went to a German restaurant and ate outdoors on the porch. Mid-way through our meal some young guys came and set up speakers and instruments on the stage and we were waiting to see what kind of music they would play because they were wearing black t-shirts, and designer jeans with dew-rags and cowboy boots. They seemed like fellows too decent to play country music, and I wanted to hear what they had to sing for themselves, but they spent the rest of the time check-check-checking and 1-2-3ing while I chewed my half of weinerschnitzel and tried to hold my own with a stout batch of sauerkraut. And then we left.

It took one and a half hours to reach the hotel again, and it got dark, and I was reading an implausible but somewhat thrilling book called Blink, about a Saudi princess runaway who likes to wear jeans and a guy with an IQ of 193 who surfs (and will eventually save her and precipitously fall in love with her). And I must be getting tired because on the way home I misread a sign that said “Cap. of TX.” for “Cup of Tea,” and you can see where my mind really is.

Since I got back to the hotel I have showered and blogged this and I will have to post it in the morning in the atrium where internet is free, because I don’t want to pay $10.77 for room internet like I accidentally did last night. Ouch.

I really have it too good…