hola, friends and neighbors. today is the first day of vacation bible school, after a week of junior high sleep-away camp, after a week of packing and unpacking, after a weekend of family reunion, preceded by a week of vacation, preceded by a weekend of debauchery with esteban, and i am very, very tired. after taking what i am sure is the legal limit for birth control (a week at camp allen with 93 junior high kids), i feel much better about my station in life. two months ago, i was being all sad and pouty about children i might never have. today, i feel pretty good about not having kids. i'll post more later. right now, i need some lunch and caffiene. lord, have mercy...
i have no sheets on my bed, and i'm down to my last two pair of clean undies. i wish i could go home and do laundry, but it's looking like i may have to visit the nice asian ladies down south at the laundry with clean and fold service. actually, i wish they had pick-up service, because at this point, i'm too freaking shredded to contemplate driving the 4.5 miles to the laundry, and my clothes and soap are already in the car. my mom offered to do my laundry and feed me, but i had to come straight home from camp to do freaking vbs stuff. did i mention that i HATE vbs? it's of the freaking devil, i swear. it's like the more i have to do this summer, the more i'm positive i made the right decision to leave. i get happier and happier doing all my last things, because i'm not having to quietly figure out how to do things better, etc. i'm just finally going to be done. thank G-d. and even though i'm still not gainfully employed as of july 31st (which is starting to make my heart beat fast if i think about it too much...), i will be glad to be doing something else, even if it's working at starbucks or blockbuster, slaving for the freaking establishment and running stupid yuppie's platinum cards for meaningless shit. everything is going to be ok.
i have a story to tell you about a 30 foot whale. it's a doozie.
mil besos-r
27 June 2005
15 June 2005
back in the saddle
work work work. pack pack pack. clean clean clean. blah blah blah. when our children's minister left, she didn't pack up her office. my intern, hereafter known as miss priss, and i are busy cleaning up that mess today. why anyone would buy rolls of st. patrick's tinsel is beyond me. needless to say, we've already filled up an entire 50 gallon garbage bag.
this clean up is worse than the time esteban and i cleaned my room in high school and found $47 in change under my bed, along with a dust bunny that might have eaten jimmy hoffa.
back to the salt mine. tomorrow, if we're done, i'll post up some stuff about the family reunion last weekend. all i can say is that 40 relatives plus a million hot dogs equals a good time.
mil besos--r
this clean up is worse than the time esteban and i cleaned my room in high school and found $47 in change under my bed, along with a dust bunny that might have eaten jimmy hoffa.
back to the salt mine. tomorrow, if we're done, i'll post up some stuff about the family reunion last weekend. all i can say is that 40 relatives plus a million hot dogs equals a good time.
mil besos--r
14 June 2005
there and back again...part four
Ok, we're almost home, i promise.
After we saw the marfa mystery lights, dealt with the fact that there were no active atm's in the tri-county area, and heard radio stations from all over the country, we went to sleep in our little tent at fort davis.
we brushed our teeth outside the tent, and at 4am, the javelinas were back to eat our spit. they are disgusting animals. eww, sick out.
we woke up bright and early (super early-- like 8am) and began drinking water for our venture to big bend. big bend may be my new favorite place in the universe. if the ocean were on the other side of boquillas canyon (i'll post a picture soon), i would move there. seriously. big bend is amazing. you should go to the national park website and read all about it. then you should make a reservation to stay and hike and take me with you. we would have a very good time.
after "the hike that never ended", we were a little worried about dehydration. so before we ever left fort davis, we started drinking water. and we drank water. and we drank water. and we drank some more water. and pretty soon, i had to adjust the seat in my car because i'd started to grow a hump... not really, but we did have to pull over once and pee by some rancher's mailbox. it was kind of fun.
we saw several mountain ranges before we entered the park. they were amazing, but nowhere near as exciting as the ones inside the park. we stopped at the entrance to big bend, which is right outside terlingua and took a nice little photo by the gate...and it's a good thing we didn't get arrested, that's all i have to say about that.
panther junction is the name of the park headquarters, and we stopped there to refill our water bottles (bad, bad idea. i should have used the water we brought in the car, but no... i had to use the park water.) and buy patches at the park store. we also read about the native wild life and figured out what trail we were going to hike, etc. in reading about the native wild life, kk learned that javelina (also known as the collared peccary) are not at all closely related to pigs, but are much more closely related to hippopotomi. go figure. so, being full of well water and having our patches from the park store, we set off for boquillas canyon, at the very southern end of the park.
boquillas canyon was carved by the rio grande and is one of the (illegal) ways you can cross into mexico from the state park. it also has a short in-out hiking trail down to the river (1.4 miles round-trip) that we thought we would take. it's also right by the hot springs--yay. we pulled into the parking lot of the trail head, visited the restroom (affectionately nicknamed "the hotbox" by yours truly--ask me why and i'll tell you later) and headed off on the trail. all i can say is that that hike was the hottest, sweatiest 1.4 miles i have ever hiked in my whole life. all three of us were drenched half way up the slope. we decided that we were not going to visit the hot springs on this trip, since we'd pretty much created our own. that, coupled with the fact that the temperature was about 250 in the shade made us not want to sit in hot water for fun.
we finished our hike in record time and headed back to the middle of the park to see big bend's highest peak (emory peak), in the chisos mountain range. on the way back to the chisos range, we ran into some interesting wildlife. i'll include a picture in the picture post--you'll love it. we drove up and up and up and the air kept getting cooler and cooler and cooler and the buick kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter, so we rolled the windows down and drove extra slow. i'm sure the people behind us just LOVED that. sorry, guys. at any rate, we stayed at the chisos mountain lodge for a big chunk of the afternoon, letting our car and ourselves cool off. and we saw the same family from the balmoreah pool that we had also seen at dinner the night before. we were totally being stalked. either that or we just kept going to the same places. it could go either way.
we drove out of the park and headed back toward alpine. alpine is a lovely little town with a funny little radio station that reminded me of the radio station in brady. they were doing some random news report about a city council meeting and appropriations for the city pool. derkirita and kk both grew up in very big cities, so they got a big kick out of the "news". while in alpine, and while we still had half a cell phone signal, i called momma so she would know we hadn't died in big bend and to tell her our plans for the next day. we also took the "in town" opportunity to buy some beer. thank G-d for beer. from alpine, we headed back toward marfa-- mostly to eat at dairy queen, but also to see the thunderbird motel and hoping to catch a glimpse of the hottie we saw checking into room 25 the night before. we saw an antelope on the side of the road, and i pulled over to take a picture of it. i don't think the people behind me were amused in the least. but we got a good shot. the dairy queen was a hit, but the hottie was a miss. 50% was ok with us, because we had beer to drink at the campsite. did i thank G-d for beer, yet?
we got back to fort davis in record time and proceeded to barbeque the rest of the peeps, even though we were still mostly full from our DQ run. the peeps, again, were glorious, and we all managed to not burn our fingers again. we had secret happy hour with the beer we bought in alpine. it was lovely. and we went to sleep under the big sky for the last time. and while i was sad our vacation was winding to an end, i was also a little bit excited about sleeping in my bed the next night.
we got up a decent hour, broke camp, cleaned up, ate a bagel, and drove back to balmoreah to finish our swim in the world's largest spring fed outdoor pool, since our first trip had gotten cut short by the hail. it was glorious, again. and the extra good part, aside from no longer being stalked by the suspiciously cute family, was that the high dive was open. all three of us jumped and made big splashes. all three of us were incredibly annoyed by the troupe of junior high kids who showed up and took over the high dive. we continued to swim and lay out and say tacky things about other people's children. it was a good time.
at around 1pm, we decided it was time to head east and face the music of the real world. we made it home to austin by 7pm, had incredible mexican food and margaritas and talked about how much fun we had had, and how we needed to do this every year. it was a great trip. i can imagine that the davis mountains haven't seen the last of rachel, derkirita, or kk.
thanks for reading. hope you like the pictures-- they are kind of awful, but hopefully derkirita will email me some of hers, and i can pretend like i'm actually a good photographer.
mil besos--rmg
After we saw the marfa mystery lights, dealt with the fact that there were no active atm's in the tri-county area, and heard radio stations from all over the country, we went to sleep in our little tent at fort davis.
we brushed our teeth outside the tent, and at 4am, the javelinas were back to eat our spit. they are disgusting animals. eww, sick out.
we woke up bright and early (super early-- like 8am) and began drinking water for our venture to big bend. big bend may be my new favorite place in the universe. if the ocean were on the other side of boquillas canyon (i'll post a picture soon), i would move there. seriously. big bend is amazing. you should go to the national park website and read all about it. then you should make a reservation to stay and hike and take me with you. we would have a very good time.
after "the hike that never ended", we were a little worried about dehydration. so before we ever left fort davis, we started drinking water. and we drank water. and we drank water. and we drank some more water. and pretty soon, i had to adjust the seat in my car because i'd started to grow a hump... not really, but we did have to pull over once and pee by some rancher's mailbox. it was kind of fun.
we saw several mountain ranges before we entered the park. they were amazing, but nowhere near as exciting as the ones inside the park. we stopped at the entrance to big bend, which is right outside terlingua and took a nice little photo by the gate...and it's a good thing we didn't get arrested, that's all i have to say about that.
panther junction is the name of the park headquarters, and we stopped there to refill our water bottles (bad, bad idea. i should have used the water we brought in the car, but no... i had to use the park water.) and buy patches at the park store. we also read about the native wild life and figured out what trail we were going to hike, etc. in reading about the native wild life, kk learned that javelina (also known as the collared peccary) are not at all closely related to pigs, but are much more closely related to hippopotomi. go figure. so, being full of well water and having our patches from the park store, we set off for boquillas canyon, at the very southern end of the park.
boquillas canyon was carved by the rio grande and is one of the (illegal) ways you can cross into mexico from the state park. it also has a short in-out hiking trail down to the river (1.4 miles round-trip) that we thought we would take. it's also right by the hot springs--yay. we pulled into the parking lot of the trail head, visited the restroom (affectionately nicknamed "the hotbox" by yours truly--ask me why and i'll tell you later) and headed off on the trail. all i can say is that that hike was the hottest, sweatiest 1.4 miles i have ever hiked in my whole life. all three of us were drenched half way up the slope. we decided that we were not going to visit the hot springs on this trip, since we'd pretty much created our own. that, coupled with the fact that the temperature was about 250 in the shade made us not want to sit in hot water for fun.
we finished our hike in record time and headed back to the middle of the park to see big bend's highest peak (emory peak), in the chisos mountain range. on the way back to the chisos range, we ran into some interesting wildlife. i'll include a picture in the picture post--you'll love it. we drove up and up and up and the air kept getting cooler and cooler and cooler and the buick kept getting hotter and hotter and hotter, so we rolled the windows down and drove extra slow. i'm sure the people behind us just LOVED that. sorry, guys. at any rate, we stayed at the chisos mountain lodge for a big chunk of the afternoon, letting our car and ourselves cool off. and we saw the same family from the balmoreah pool that we had also seen at dinner the night before. we were totally being stalked. either that or we just kept going to the same places. it could go either way.
we drove out of the park and headed back toward alpine. alpine is a lovely little town with a funny little radio station that reminded me of the radio station in brady. they were doing some random news report about a city council meeting and appropriations for the city pool. derkirita and kk both grew up in very big cities, so they got a big kick out of the "news". while in alpine, and while we still had half a cell phone signal, i called momma so she would know we hadn't died in big bend and to tell her our plans for the next day. we also took the "in town" opportunity to buy some beer. thank G-d for beer. from alpine, we headed back toward marfa-- mostly to eat at dairy queen, but also to see the thunderbird motel and hoping to catch a glimpse of the hottie we saw checking into room 25 the night before. we saw an antelope on the side of the road, and i pulled over to take a picture of it. i don't think the people behind me were amused in the least. but we got a good shot. the dairy queen was a hit, but the hottie was a miss. 50% was ok with us, because we had beer to drink at the campsite. did i thank G-d for beer, yet?
we got back to fort davis in record time and proceeded to barbeque the rest of the peeps, even though we were still mostly full from our DQ run. the peeps, again, were glorious, and we all managed to not burn our fingers again. we had secret happy hour with the beer we bought in alpine. it was lovely. and we went to sleep under the big sky for the last time. and while i was sad our vacation was winding to an end, i was also a little bit excited about sleeping in my bed the next night.
we got up a decent hour, broke camp, cleaned up, ate a bagel, and drove back to balmoreah to finish our swim in the world's largest spring fed outdoor pool, since our first trip had gotten cut short by the hail. it was glorious, again. and the extra good part, aside from no longer being stalked by the suspiciously cute family, was that the high dive was open. all three of us jumped and made big splashes. all three of us were incredibly annoyed by the troupe of junior high kids who showed up and took over the high dive. we continued to swim and lay out and say tacky things about other people's children. it was a good time.
at around 1pm, we decided it was time to head east and face the music of the real world. we made it home to austin by 7pm, had incredible mexican food and margaritas and talked about how much fun we had had, and how we needed to do this every year. it was a great trip. i can imagine that the davis mountains haven't seen the last of rachel, derkirita, or kk.
thanks for reading. hope you like the pictures-- they are kind of awful, but hopefully derkirita will email me some of hers, and i can pretend like i'm actually a good photographer.
mil besos--rmg
13 June 2005
there and back again...part three
the day after "the hike that never ended" and "attack of the wild javelinas" was a lovely one. it was another cool and crisp start to a lovely day, and since we had showered the night before, we were in fairly good moods. all i can say is that dr. bonner's magic soap is one of the things for which i am most grateful in my life. it makes you feel minty fresh for hours. that and johnson's baby powder. sorry, i got sidetracked.
derkirita made breakfast couscous, which was brown-sugary good with cranberries. yum. during breakfast (we got the coffee pot fixed before we actually made the coffee, this time, so no burns this morning) dungeon master came over to chat with us about the previous night's excitement. it was then that he got his name, because up until then, he'd just been "nice stepdad with cute wife and stepkid". this guy was so full of crap, i'm surprised a little didn't drip out of the corner of his mouth everytime he spoke. seriously. here's how the story went down:
kk: so, how much stuff did you guys loose last night? was everyone ok?
dungeon master: oh, we lost some lunch meat, and the little bastards ate our ham. (i'm thinking this is highly ironic until later in the day when i find out that javelina aren't even related to pigs...) ***This is the good part** i hit the big one on the head with my mag light. (oh right, like he would still have a freaking arm...), and i was going to pick up one of the little ones and throw it in the creek, but i was trying to pick the cooler up at the same time. (uh huh, i bet...). blah blah blah...i've been around wild animals my whole life. i used to run a rescue farm for stuff. we've raised xyz such animals...
r: oh wow, that's cool.
dungeon master: more bullsh*t for about 5 more minutes, after which he gave us his left over firewood. yay.
then he left. kk gave me crap for encouraging the dungeon master. and when he said that he and the fam were going to be on vacation for two more weeks, i politely said " hey, take us with you" and we all laughed. kk was not amused by the idea of being with dungeon master for any more than the 15 minutes it took us to pack our stuff to go to balmoreah. kk decided to call him the dungeon master after the extensive lecture he gave us on wild animal husbandry. the name really stuck when he started an impromptu digeree (sp?) dou jam session with his kid, who looked like dewey from "malcolm in the middle". kk said he looked like the kind of guy who would have his dungeons and dragons set with him on vacation, and would insist on being the dungeon master anytime he played. derkirita and i concurred.
we got packed up for our outing that day, and headed to balmoreah state park, site of the world's largest outdoor spring-fed swimming pool. it was beautiful, cold, and full of fish. it was amazing to be in the middle of the desert and just have this actual oasis open right up in the middle of it all. derkirita said being there made her feel like she was in some foreign country. we ate trail mix, people watched, swam and sunbathed. we saw a cute little family playing in the pool. little did we know, that cute fam would stalk us for the rest of the trip. or if they weren't stalking us, they sure showed up every where else we went for the entire week. i don't think they are actually in my apartment at the moment, but i haven't put all my laundry away, yet...
the clouds started moving in from the west at a pretty fast clip, and it started to thunder and lightening, so we got out of the pool like the smart kids we are. we had lunch under a little pavilion and watched it rain. and then we watched it hail. and hail. and rain. and hail a little more. we packed up, bought our park patches, and drove back to the fort with the slightly sulfur smell of san Solomon springs in our hair. it was lovely and we made a plan to come back there on our way back to austin.
at the fort, we changed clothes (we felt clean enough, since we swam) and set our plans for the evening activities--dinner at the historic el paisano hotel and viewing of the marfa mystery lights.
as an aside, i should tell you that derkirita planned this whole trip into the west. and i should also tell you that she was partly inspired by an episode of "king of the hill", where in bobby gets to see the marfa lights. this is partially what caused kk's inner monologue voice to be bobby hill for the duration of the trip, that and the fact that i can apparently do a wicked bobby impression and kept talking in that voice for large periods of time.
the hotel paisano (which you can read about here:http://www.hotelpaisano.com/ ) was where elizabeth taylor and rock hudson, et. al. stayed during the filming of the epic "Giant". the movie itself was filmed outside of marfa, on the mitchell plateau. they have a lot of memorabilia from the movie in the hotel, and a cute little restaurant. dinner was good, and many thanks go to kk for footing the bill. our waiter was this little nervous guy named "shin-knee" at least, that's how he pronounced it, and pointed to the corresponding body parts to reinforce said pronunciation. he also had on a lot of cologne. but he was mostly cute and did a pretty good job waiting on the three of us. should you visit jett's grill at the hotel, i can recommend one or two items. the crusted steak was excellent, the garlic potatoes were nice, if a little on the cold side, and the chocolate creme brulee was superlative. seriously. it was better than a big wet smooch.
ok, it was a close second.
and then, we went to see the eeriest thing i have ever personally witnessed in all my 26 years of life. we got to the marfa mystery lights viewing area about an hour before dusk, since dusk is supposed to be the prime viewing time for the lights. we were accosted (ok, just sort of talked to) by a bizarre lady in a blue miata, who kept looking into the south, and telling us to "look beyond and then look beyond the beyond..." in some kind of weird shamanic voice that evoked thoughts of unfiltered cigarettes and jars of homebrew. it was sort of neat, i think. she said that she came to texas because she hated tennesee. she said that when she died, she didn't want to go to heaven, she wanted to go to texas. and that marfa seemed like as good a place to die as anywhere else. like i said, it was a weird experience the whole way around. but the blue miata lady was a good set up for what i found (or rather didn't find) in the bathroom.
now, people who know me know how much i love bathrooms, and it's not because i particularly like them just because. no, i love them because i'm in them all the time. while i usually prefer function over form, i must say that the marfa mystery lights view area bathroom was a pleasure to experience from all facets. it was a recycling toilet. i don't want to know into what my or your or anyone else's waste was being recycled, but it was amazing. not only was there no water (which freaked me out at first), there was NO SMELL. it was incredible. and there was a nice, slightly disconcerting breeze coming from under the seat. i liked it so much, i took pictures of the bathroom. i'll post them with the others...but that's another bunny trail...
the marfa mystery lights were first seen and reported by anglos in the late 1800's. but the native americans who lived in that part of texas had stories about them going back for hundreds of years. no one has figured out what causes them, but theories abound. you can google "marfa mystery lights" and see some of the theories for yourself, if you'd like.
all i can tell you is that there is something out there, and i've never seen anything quite like what i saw that night, and while i wasn't afraid of what i saw, it certainly left me feeling a little uneasy, but glad, too, because it's nice to sometimes be reminded that some things in this life just defy explanation. it was beautiful and bizarre.
on the way back to the fort, we discovered that there are no working atm's in the tri-county area. we also discovered that we could pick up radio stations in los angeles, shreveport, dallas, san antonio, and other places that didn't speak english. it was very exciting. i kind of wanted to listen to creepy radio shows about aliens, but was still a little freaked out.
we made it home in one piece and slept a good long sleep, except that the javelinas made a return trip to eat our toothpaste spit. sick out.
i'll finish up our adventures and tell you about the family reunion tomorrow.
mil besos--r
derkirita made breakfast couscous, which was brown-sugary good with cranberries. yum. during breakfast (we got the coffee pot fixed before we actually made the coffee, this time, so no burns this morning) dungeon master came over to chat with us about the previous night's excitement. it was then that he got his name, because up until then, he'd just been "nice stepdad with cute wife and stepkid". this guy was so full of crap, i'm surprised a little didn't drip out of the corner of his mouth everytime he spoke. seriously. here's how the story went down:
kk: so, how much stuff did you guys loose last night? was everyone ok?
dungeon master: oh, we lost some lunch meat, and the little bastards ate our ham. (i'm thinking this is highly ironic until later in the day when i find out that javelina aren't even related to pigs...) ***This is the good part** i hit the big one on the head with my mag light. (oh right, like he would still have a freaking arm...), and i was going to pick up one of the little ones and throw it in the creek, but i was trying to pick the cooler up at the same time. (uh huh, i bet...). blah blah blah...i've been around wild animals my whole life. i used to run a rescue farm for stuff. we've raised xyz such animals...
r: oh wow, that's cool.
dungeon master: more bullsh*t for about 5 more minutes, after which he gave us his left over firewood. yay.
then he left. kk gave me crap for encouraging the dungeon master. and when he said that he and the fam were going to be on vacation for two more weeks, i politely said " hey, take us with you" and we all laughed. kk was not amused by the idea of being with dungeon master for any more than the 15 minutes it took us to pack our stuff to go to balmoreah. kk decided to call him the dungeon master after the extensive lecture he gave us on wild animal husbandry. the name really stuck when he started an impromptu digeree (sp?) dou jam session with his kid, who looked like dewey from "malcolm in the middle". kk said he looked like the kind of guy who would have his dungeons and dragons set with him on vacation, and would insist on being the dungeon master anytime he played. derkirita and i concurred.
we got packed up for our outing that day, and headed to balmoreah state park, site of the world's largest outdoor spring-fed swimming pool. it was beautiful, cold, and full of fish. it was amazing to be in the middle of the desert and just have this actual oasis open right up in the middle of it all. derkirita said being there made her feel like she was in some foreign country. we ate trail mix, people watched, swam and sunbathed. we saw a cute little family playing in the pool. little did we know, that cute fam would stalk us for the rest of the trip. or if they weren't stalking us, they sure showed up every where else we went for the entire week. i don't think they are actually in my apartment at the moment, but i haven't put all my laundry away, yet...
the clouds started moving in from the west at a pretty fast clip, and it started to thunder and lightening, so we got out of the pool like the smart kids we are. we had lunch under a little pavilion and watched it rain. and then we watched it hail. and hail. and rain. and hail a little more. we packed up, bought our park patches, and drove back to the fort with the slightly sulfur smell of san Solomon springs in our hair. it was lovely and we made a plan to come back there on our way back to austin.
at the fort, we changed clothes (we felt clean enough, since we swam) and set our plans for the evening activities--dinner at the historic el paisano hotel and viewing of the marfa mystery lights.
as an aside, i should tell you that derkirita planned this whole trip into the west. and i should also tell you that she was partly inspired by an episode of "king of the hill", where in bobby gets to see the marfa lights. this is partially what caused kk's inner monologue voice to be bobby hill for the duration of the trip, that and the fact that i can apparently do a wicked bobby impression and kept talking in that voice for large periods of time.
the hotel paisano (which you can read about here:http://www.hotelpaisano.com/ ) was where elizabeth taylor and rock hudson, et. al. stayed during the filming of the epic "Giant". the movie itself was filmed outside of marfa, on the mitchell plateau. they have a lot of memorabilia from the movie in the hotel, and a cute little restaurant. dinner was good, and many thanks go to kk for footing the bill. our waiter was this little nervous guy named "shin-knee" at least, that's how he pronounced it, and pointed to the corresponding body parts to reinforce said pronunciation. he also had on a lot of cologne. but he was mostly cute and did a pretty good job waiting on the three of us. should you visit jett's grill at the hotel, i can recommend one or two items. the crusted steak was excellent, the garlic potatoes were nice, if a little on the cold side, and the chocolate creme brulee was superlative. seriously. it was better than a big wet smooch.
ok, it was a close second.
and then, we went to see the eeriest thing i have ever personally witnessed in all my 26 years of life. we got to the marfa mystery lights viewing area about an hour before dusk, since dusk is supposed to be the prime viewing time for the lights. we were accosted (ok, just sort of talked to) by a bizarre lady in a blue miata, who kept looking into the south, and telling us to "look beyond and then look beyond the beyond..." in some kind of weird shamanic voice that evoked thoughts of unfiltered cigarettes and jars of homebrew. it was sort of neat, i think. she said that she came to texas because she hated tennesee. she said that when she died, she didn't want to go to heaven, she wanted to go to texas. and that marfa seemed like as good a place to die as anywhere else. like i said, it was a weird experience the whole way around. but the blue miata lady was a good set up for what i found (or rather didn't find) in the bathroom.
now, people who know me know how much i love bathrooms, and it's not because i particularly like them just because. no, i love them because i'm in them all the time. while i usually prefer function over form, i must say that the marfa mystery lights view area bathroom was a pleasure to experience from all facets. it was a recycling toilet. i don't want to know into what my or your or anyone else's waste was being recycled, but it was amazing. not only was there no water (which freaked me out at first), there was NO SMELL. it was incredible. and there was a nice, slightly disconcerting breeze coming from under the seat. i liked it so much, i took pictures of the bathroom. i'll post them with the others...but that's another bunny trail...
the marfa mystery lights were first seen and reported by anglos in the late 1800's. but the native americans who lived in that part of texas had stories about them going back for hundreds of years. no one has figured out what causes them, but theories abound. you can google "marfa mystery lights" and see some of the theories for yourself, if you'd like.
all i can tell you is that there is something out there, and i've never seen anything quite like what i saw that night, and while i wasn't afraid of what i saw, it certainly left me feeling a little uneasy, but glad, too, because it's nice to sometimes be reminded that some things in this life just defy explanation. it was beautiful and bizarre.
on the way back to the fort, we discovered that there are no working atm's in the tri-county area. we also discovered that we could pick up radio stations in los angeles, shreveport, dallas, san antonio, and other places that didn't speak english. it was very exciting. i kind of wanted to listen to creepy radio shows about aliens, but was still a little freaked out.
we made it home in one piece and slept a good long sleep, except that the javelinas made a return trip to eat our toothpaste spit. sick out.
i'll finish up our adventures and tell you about the family reunion tomorrow.
mil besos--r
there and back again...part two
day two of our excellent adventure dawned clear and bright and a little on the chilly side. it was a wonderful thing to wake up on june 4th in a thermal shirt. we decided to take a hike after breakfast, which was wonderful. derkirita made breakfast tacos, and after several burned fingers trying to tighten up the french press, we had some cowboy coffee, too. we lazed around the campsite and took care of our morning stuff in a very leisurely fashion, so we didn't get started on our hike until 11.
we lubed ourselves up with spf 15, packed up our day pack with dried fruit, extra water, and a train map, and headed off to where we started "the hike that never ended". oh it was a glorious hike through the davis mountains, on a poorly marked trail, uphill, downhill, across the hill, you name it, we hiked it. and just when we thought we had a) reached the prettiest view yet, or b) finally reached the end of the trail, we were proved wrong. we saw about 10 different kinds of yucca plant--flowering, non-flowering, fruit-bearing, non-fruit-bearing, etc. we saw birds and lizards, lots of mesquite trees, about 10 million ocotillo cacti (i'll post a picture of those with my picture post) with beautiful purple flowers. derkirita loves the ocotillo. i mostly think she just likes the way it sounds when you say it.
we hiked for a while, and stopped to rest and snack on the dried fruit and reapply sunblock. we hiked up the mountain some more. we figured we'd be home soon. wrong. we figured the shack with the antenna on top would have water faucets, since it was on the road and was by the park look out. so not the case, friends and neighbors, so not the case. it was about this time that i started to get a little panicky, since we had used up the extra water and were down to what was left in our bottles. luckily, and thank the baby jesus, we started down the mountain. after several sets of wickedly sharp switchbacks, we ended up at the interpretive center, scene of last night's lecture on medical practices in the 1890's. we were very happy. we drank a lot of water. we slept in the tent (for a little while), saved the mr. dungeon master's (more on him in a second..) lunch from getting washed away in the brief afternoon shower, and talked about how we so almost just died. we also contemplated writing a sharply worded letter to the park service regarding their trail markers and how much they suck.
that night, we made the camp dinner to end all camp dinners, because the sweet baby jesus knows the three of us could have eaten a horse each and still had room left for dessert. now, i need to preface this part of the story with a couple of facts. kk and derkirita are two of the finest cooks i know, hands down. talk about making silk purses out of sow's ears..those two could make dinner from just about anything, and make it taste so good you'd want to slap someone. seriously. you should also know that kk is a peeps fiend. you know peeps-- the marshmallow sugar coated bunnies and chicks that you get at easter? kk loves them--i mean loves them in a deep and profound way that she can't explain. it's almost spiritual. but i digress...
so we make hobo dinners that night. they were glorious. little foil packets of goodness, including ground beef, carrots, potatoes, onions, spices, and a splash or two of red wine from our secret stash. they were wonderful. derkirita knows how to plan a menu. and kk knows how to order up a wonderful dessert. i have to admit that i was skeptical of what is now being called "peeps brulee" since i have been a life-long staunch peep hater. i was wrong. peeps brulee, the brain child of kk, was amazing. thank the lord derkirita saved a package of chicks and a package of bunnies from easter. ( kk said they were just the right amount of stale) we roasted the peeps over the coals left from making our hobo dinners. they tasted almost exactly like creme brulee, and the three of us managed to get burns on at least one finger a piece in our excitement and readiness to cram that gooey marshmallowy sugary goodness down our throats. glorious. and we cleaned up and went to bed, where we slept peacefully until about 4 am.
let me back up to mr. dungeon master's picnic basket. dungeon master and his family set up camp next to us sometime while we were on "the hike that never ended". it was a very nice tent, and when kk dropped the picnic basket in there, she noted that instead of the hot camping guys i was hoping had camped next to us, a family was in residence. they came tramping back sometime during the dinner hour, and seemed like a happy little fam. dungeon master was very nice to his wife and his kid. we decided they were "good people".
ok, so sometime around 4am, we three were awakened by a string of obscenities the likes of which i had only read about. and there was a lot of snorting. and it smelled really bad. and there was a lot more swearing. a lot more. the dungeon master and his family had left their dry box and cooler out on their picnic table like a bunch of dumb rookies. a whole band of javelinas had smelled the goodies from their den on the creek bed, and decided that it was dinner time. so dungeon master is awakened by their snorting and rooting around and squeals of delight as they tip the cooler off the picnic table. those javelinas are smart critters. so dungeon master comes out of his tent with his mag-light, and in the shadows of our own mag-light and the derkirita's head lamp, it looks like all he came out with was his mag-light. and by that, i mean the man looked naked as a jay-bird. and it was kind of scary. we figured out that he was indeed clothed, but in the smallest pair of whitey-tighties G-d ever made. so dungeon master is swearing and screaming and waving his arms trying to chase the javelinas off, and finally he succeeds. we giggled for a while, until we realized that being awake for so long has made us need to water the trees. we then remember that javelinas aren't' particularly nice animals, and a smell outside seems to indicate that kk's skunk friend is in the area and isn't a javelina fan, either. we went to the bathroom anyway. the rest of the night was quite peaceful, if not smelly.
we lubed ourselves up with spf 15, packed up our day pack with dried fruit, extra water, and a train map, and headed off to where we started "the hike that never ended". oh it was a glorious hike through the davis mountains, on a poorly marked trail, uphill, downhill, across the hill, you name it, we hiked it. and just when we thought we had a) reached the prettiest view yet, or b) finally reached the end of the trail, we were proved wrong. we saw about 10 different kinds of yucca plant--flowering, non-flowering, fruit-bearing, non-fruit-bearing, etc. we saw birds and lizards, lots of mesquite trees, about 10 million ocotillo cacti (i'll post a picture of those with my picture post) with beautiful purple flowers. derkirita loves the ocotillo. i mostly think she just likes the way it sounds when you say it.
we hiked for a while, and stopped to rest and snack on the dried fruit and reapply sunblock. we hiked up the mountain some more. we figured we'd be home soon. wrong. we figured the shack with the antenna on top would have water faucets, since it was on the road and was by the park look out. so not the case, friends and neighbors, so not the case. it was about this time that i started to get a little panicky, since we had used up the extra water and were down to what was left in our bottles. luckily, and thank the baby jesus, we started down the mountain. after several sets of wickedly sharp switchbacks, we ended up at the interpretive center, scene of last night's lecture on medical practices in the 1890's. we were very happy. we drank a lot of water. we slept in the tent (for a little while), saved the mr. dungeon master's (more on him in a second..) lunch from getting washed away in the brief afternoon shower, and talked about how we so almost just died. we also contemplated writing a sharply worded letter to the park service regarding their trail markers and how much they suck.
that night, we made the camp dinner to end all camp dinners, because the sweet baby jesus knows the three of us could have eaten a horse each and still had room left for dessert. now, i need to preface this part of the story with a couple of facts. kk and derkirita are two of the finest cooks i know, hands down. talk about making silk purses out of sow's ears..those two could make dinner from just about anything, and make it taste so good you'd want to slap someone. seriously. you should also know that kk is a peeps fiend. you know peeps-- the marshmallow sugar coated bunnies and chicks that you get at easter? kk loves them--i mean loves them in a deep and profound way that she can't explain. it's almost spiritual. but i digress...
so we make hobo dinners that night. they were glorious. little foil packets of goodness, including ground beef, carrots, potatoes, onions, spices, and a splash or two of red wine from our secret stash. they were wonderful. derkirita knows how to plan a menu. and kk knows how to order up a wonderful dessert. i have to admit that i was skeptical of what is now being called "peeps brulee" since i have been a life-long staunch peep hater. i was wrong. peeps brulee, the brain child of kk, was amazing. thank the lord derkirita saved a package of chicks and a package of bunnies from easter. ( kk said they were just the right amount of stale) we roasted the peeps over the coals left from making our hobo dinners. they tasted almost exactly like creme brulee, and the three of us managed to get burns on at least one finger a piece in our excitement and readiness to cram that gooey marshmallowy sugary goodness down our throats. glorious. and we cleaned up and went to bed, where we slept peacefully until about 4 am.
let me back up to mr. dungeon master's picnic basket. dungeon master and his family set up camp next to us sometime while we were on "the hike that never ended". it was a very nice tent, and when kk dropped the picnic basket in there, she noted that instead of the hot camping guys i was hoping had camped next to us, a family was in residence. they came tramping back sometime during the dinner hour, and seemed like a happy little fam. dungeon master was very nice to his wife and his kid. we decided they were "good people".
ok, so sometime around 4am, we three were awakened by a string of obscenities the likes of which i had only read about. and there was a lot of snorting. and it smelled really bad. and there was a lot more swearing. a lot more. the dungeon master and his family had left their dry box and cooler out on their picnic table like a bunch of dumb rookies. a whole band of javelinas had smelled the goodies from their den on the creek bed, and decided that it was dinner time. so dungeon master is awakened by their snorting and rooting around and squeals of delight as they tip the cooler off the picnic table. those javelinas are smart critters. so dungeon master comes out of his tent with his mag-light, and in the shadows of our own mag-light and the derkirita's head lamp, it looks like all he came out with was his mag-light. and by that, i mean the man looked naked as a jay-bird. and it was kind of scary. we figured out that he was indeed clothed, but in the smallest pair of whitey-tighties G-d ever made. so dungeon master is swearing and screaming and waving his arms trying to chase the javelinas off, and finally he succeeds. we giggled for a while, until we realized that being awake for so long has made us need to water the trees. we then remember that javelinas aren't' particularly nice animals, and a smell outside seems to indicate that kk's skunk friend is in the area and isn't a javelina fan, either. we went to the bathroom anyway. the rest of the night was quite peaceful, if not smelly.
there and back again...part one
oh lord. it's been two weeks of non-stop, wall-to-wall fun. i am completely overstimulated. i have seen mountains and valleys, mystery lights and historical buildings, 40 cousins and baby sonograms, burros and antelope, fat kids with snorkel fins and skinny grown-ups with beer cans. i have been in the world's largest national park and the world's largest spring-fed swimming pool. i have had my toothpaste spit eaten by a wild pack of javelinas and have snuck drinks of wine and beer from my coffee cup. i have eaten about 9 thousand hotdogs and floated the shortest river in texas with my baby cousins. i have heard stories about when i was little, and gave fodder for stories about what i was like in my 20's. but that's the short story. the long story, well, here it goes...
derkirita got into town on the 2nd. kk came over that night, as well, and sacrificed a night in her own bed. we three watched "lonesome dove", packed, and caught up on each other's stories. and we had our last real showers ( mine was glorious). we slept right through all three alarms the next morning, and instead of leaving at 7, we left at 8:30. go figure... after taco shack and a gas station run, we were on our way to the wilds of west texas.
we made decent time and arrived in ft. davis at around 3pm. we made camp, found out about the program at the state park interpretive center, and got ourselves firmly ensconced in camping mode, complete with a drive by from rat-tail man. i think rat tail man had been camping for a while, if the length of said rat-tail was any indication of duration-- kind of like the buttons on a rattle snake tail...it was highly entertaining, and he definitely had the biggest grill in the entire camp.
we decided to take in the interpretive talk at the park hq--what a doozie. the park ranger was hilarious! she had a side kick that was all dressed up like an officer's wife, who handed out bookmarks to everyone who answered a trivia question correctly. other than that, i'm not too sure what purpose the side kick served. comic relief maybe, because that park ranger was nuttier than a fruit cake. the ranger's talk was all about medical technology in the late 1800's. she just kept repeating things like "in 1891, we didn't even have things like aspirin" or "people would just die of diarrhea" or "we had to give heroin to people with hayfever". needless to say, the three of us used those sweet lines for the rest of the whole trip. and embellished them for our own purposes. so, after the ranger finished her talk, we headed back to tent, sweet tent for some dinner and adventure planning.
on the way there, we ran into the person we affectionately referred to as "skippy the stoner" for the rest of the week. we were walking to our tent, minding our own business, when we were approached by this young kid. "hey, i know this seems like a weird question, but do you guys have any pot? i mean, maybe you're looking to make a sale, or something..." seriously, this happened. the three of us just kind of looked at each other, and were like, "uh, no, sorry man" and we just walked away. the funny part is that i don't think he believed us one bit. in hind sight, we should have sold him the oregano in our spice kit. i think he put a gris-gris on us, (that's a cajun word for a curse) because we broke mr. derkits' leatherman when we were trying to make dinner. oops.
after dinner and a very sneaky cocktail hour that consisted of us pouring beer into our coffee cups and coughing loudly to cover up the sound of the pop top, we put on our jackets and headed up to the star viewing area of the park. it was amazing. it felt like you could have reached up and grabbed a handful of stars and put them in your pocket. and there were about a million and one fireflies all over the place, so it was like a million and one tiny flashbulbs going off all around you, which proved to be helpful when we were almost attacked by not one, but two skunks. yuck. kk thinks they are cute and insists that if you have them de-smelled that they would make wonderful pets. no way, jose. we got kicked out of the sky viewing area by the park hosts because it was after 10pm, but i think that since they almost ran us over (ok, we were lying in the middle of the road...), they could have let us stay for 30 more minutes. and then we went an brushed our teeth and went to bed for the night, which passed uneventfully.
derkirita got into town on the 2nd. kk came over that night, as well, and sacrificed a night in her own bed. we three watched "lonesome dove", packed, and caught up on each other's stories. and we had our last real showers ( mine was glorious). we slept right through all three alarms the next morning, and instead of leaving at 7, we left at 8:30. go figure... after taco shack and a gas station run, we were on our way to the wilds of west texas.
we made decent time and arrived in ft. davis at around 3pm. we made camp, found out about the program at the state park interpretive center, and got ourselves firmly ensconced in camping mode, complete with a drive by from rat-tail man. i think rat tail man had been camping for a while, if the length of said rat-tail was any indication of duration-- kind of like the buttons on a rattle snake tail...it was highly entertaining, and he definitely had the biggest grill in the entire camp.
we decided to take in the interpretive talk at the park hq--what a doozie. the park ranger was hilarious! she had a side kick that was all dressed up like an officer's wife, who handed out bookmarks to everyone who answered a trivia question correctly. other than that, i'm not too sure what purpose the side kick served. comic relief maybe, because that park ranger was nuttier than a fruit cake. the ranger's talk was all about medical technology in the late 1800's. she just kept repeating things like "in 1891, we didn't even have things like aspirin" or "people would just die of diarrhea" or "we had to give heroin to people with hayfever". needless to say, the three of us used those sweet lines for the rest of the whole trip. and embellished them for our own purposes. so, after the ranger finished her talk, we headed back to tent, sweet tent for some dinner and adventure planning.
on the way there, we ran into the person we affectionately referred to as "skippy the stoner" for the rest of the week. we were walking to our tent, minding our own business, when we were approached by this young kid. "hey, i know this seems like a weird question, but do you guys have any pot? i mean, maybe you're looking to make a sale, or something..." seriously, this happened. the three of us just kind of looked at each other, and were like, "uh, no, sorry man" and we just walked away. the funny part is that i don't think he believed us one bit. in hind sight, we should have sold him the oregano in our spice kit. i think he put a gris-gris on us, (that's a cajun word for a curse) because we broke mr. derkits' leatherman when we were trying to make dinner. oops.
after dinner and a very sneaky cocktail hour that consisted of us pouring beer into our coffee cups and coughing loudly to cover up the sound of the pop top, we put on our jackets and headed up to the star viewing area of the park. it was amazing. it felt like you could have reached up and grabbed a handful of stars and put them in your pocket. and there were about a million and one fireflies all over the place, so it was like a million and one tiny flashbulbs going off all around you, which proved to be helpful when we were almost attacked by not one, but two skunks. yuck. kk thinks they are cute and insists that if you have them de-smelled that they would make wonderful pets. no way, jose. we got kicked out of the sky viewing area by the park hosts because it was after 10pm, but i think that since they almost ran us over (ok, we were lying in the middle of the road...), they could have let us stay for 30 more minutes. and then we went an brushed our teeth and went to bed for the night, which passed uneventfully.
02 June 2005
popularity contest...
no, i'm not talking about my life and my shameless efforts to curry favor. i'm talking about all-star games. at the request of he who must be gratuitously footnoted and occasionally obeyed, i am weighing in on this rant...
all-star games, while nice in principle, are total crap. aside from the show-boat events like the dunk contest or the homerun derby, those games are just another chance for the pretty faces of the various leagues to get more camera time, more time to endorse the crap they sell, more time for the tax base of the host city to be enriched, etc. and for what? home field advantage? in an age where cheap air-fare and the horrible pervasiveness of expansion teams makes it fairly easy for the average person to go watch the game of their choice, all-star games are pointless.
not to mention that, as aristotle and de toqueville pointed out, people, when left to their own devices, usually act like pin-heads. take the upcoming baseball all-star ballot, for instance. nomar (now i know he was a red sox player, but not any more...so he gets no protection from me), who's on the DL at the moment with an unfortunate injury, but only had a .157 batting average when he got placed on the DL. i think i know some high school freshman who could get a .157. that voting isn't about putting the best of the best forward, it's about promoting who we like best, which is totally different.
all i'm saying is that if we want all star games to be like the miss america pageant, and just pick the prettiest, nicest, most outgoing players, then let's just own that, and deal with the mediocre game that will ensue. on the other hand, if the all star games are about picking the best players to play against each other in a non-division game, then why not let the coaches and players do the picking, and just let us stick to the hot dog eating, beer swilling, heckling from the stands, and watching, just watching, amazing feats of athleticism. that's all i'm saying.
and just to really make some people mad, i'll go ahead and say this-- NASCAR IS NOT A SPORT. yes, it is physically taxing. yes, it is difficult to drive a car 250 miles an hour around a tiny circle and only make left turns and avoid hitting the other cars on the track. but it's not a sport. if you think it is, you are wrong. putting NASCAR in a class with basketball (GO SPURS GO!) or baseball or even freaking curling hurts my heart. it does more than that, it almost offends me on a personal level. i mean, if you are going to classify NASCAR as a sport, i want my standing saturday night babysitting gig with The Four Horsemen considered a sport as well.
the deep throat post is coming...
mil besos--rmg
all-star games, while nice in principle, are total crap. aside from the show-boat events like the dunk contest or the homerun derby, those games are just another chance for the pretty faces of the various leagues to get more camera time, more time to endorse the crap they sell, more time for the tax base of the host city to be enriched, etc. and for what? home field advantage? in an age where cheap air-fare and the horrible pervasiveness of expansion teams makes it fairly easy for the average person to go watch the game of their choice, all-star games are pointless.
not to mention that, as aristotle and de toqueville pointed out, people, when left to their own devices, usually act like pin-heads. take the upcoming baseball all-star ballot, for instance. nomar (now i know he was a red sox player, but not any more...so he gets no protection from me), who's on the DL at the moment with an unfortunate injury, but only had a .157 batting average when he got placed on the DL. i think i know some high school freshman who could get a .157. that voting isn't about putting the best of the best forward, it's about promoting who we like best, which is totally different.
all i'm saying is that if we want all star games to be like the miss america pageant, and just pick the prettiest, nicest, most outgoing players, then let's just own that, and deal with the mediocre game that will ensue. on the other hand, if the all star games are about picking the best players to play against each other in a non-division game, then why not let the coaches and players do the picking, and just let us stick to the hot dog eating, beer swilling, heckling from the stands, and watching, just watching, amazing feats of athleticism. that's all i'm saying.
and just to really make some people mad, i'll go ahead and say this-- NASCAR IS NOT A SPORT. yes, it is physically taxing. yes, it is difficult to drive a car 250 miles an hour around a tiny circle and only make left turns and avoid hitting the other cars on the track. but it's not a sport. if you think it is, you are wrong. putting NASCAR in a class with basketball (GO SPURS GO!) or baseball or even freaking curling hurts my heart. it does more than that, it almost offends me on a personal level. i mean, if you are going to classify NASCAR as a sport, i want my standing saturday night babysitting gig with The Four Horsemen considered a sport as well.
the deep throat post is coming...
mil besos--rmg
01 June 2005
long kiss goodnight
and so it begins. i turned in my resignation to the boss man yesterday at 5:15. i have spent most of the day telling kids and parents. it sucks. but it's kind of good, because it's important that i do this-- and by "this ", i mean telling the kids and making good plans to leave. they are taking the news well, and i am very grateful for that.
in other news, this morning, i woke to the sound of rock hitting glass, and was shocked and dismayed to find that the lawn guys had weed-eaten a rock right through my sliding glass door. believe it or not, this is the second time this has happened to me. blah. however, the cool part was that one of the guys who came to repair the glass was an old high school acquaintance of mine, and when he heard that i had a lunch meeting, he got the situation taken care of muy pronto. yet another thing for which to be grateful...
and i got to wear my second favorite outfit today-- white linen skirt, brown t-shirt, cute flippies. and my hair is incredible today.
i'm having a meeting with the first set of law firms to set up interviews, and based on the prelim convo, the one i wanted to work for is not going to pan out, at least that's my initial impression. but keep your fingers crossed...
mil besos--rmg, the process queen
in other news, this morning, i woke to the sound of rock hitting glass, and was shocked and dismayed to find that the lawn guys had weed-eaten a rock right through my sliding glass door. believe it or not, this is the second time this has happened to me. blah. however, the cool part was that one of the guys who came to repair the glass was an old high school acquaintance of mine, and when he heard that i had a lunch meeting, he got the situation taken care of muy pronto. yet another thing for which to be grateful...
and i got to wear my second favorite outfit today-- white linen skirt, brown t-shirt, cute flippies. and my hair is incredible today.
i'm having a meeting with the first set of law firms to set up interviews, and based on the prelim convo, the one i wanted to work for is not going to pan out, at least that's my initial impression. but keep your fingers crossed...
fun is on the way... i just know it. it has to be that way. and this time next week, i will hopefully have more clarity, a kick-butt tan, and some freaking clue about the direction my life is taking... i'll keep you posted.
mil besos--rmg, the process queen
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