Big Bend, Really Far Away Texas (Part Two)

 Things I saw at Big Bend, in no particular order:

Birds! So many birds--there were vermillion flycatchers everywhere, zooming and divebombing all day long. They were entertaining, and obviously keeping the bug population down because I had zero issues with pests or biters at Big Bend. There were bright red boyos and I believe the orangey looking ones were their girlfriends. I am not an aves expert, so couldn’t say for sure, but they did look like matching pairs.

The most striking birds were the turkey vultures--they're big with impressive wingspans. Their flight patterns over the campsites were something to see…but my favorite part was when one would come down to the ground and carefully walk around looking for morsels. These are large, awesome birds with the scary vulture face, so to watch one carefully strut around on the grass was kind of hilarious, sort of like those less-than-majestic, face-front photos of bald eagles. So regal and suddenly so...gawky. They look like a first-day waiter balancing a large tray of drinks.

The best bird of all was the roadrunner. Look here: I have despised roadrunners since one tortured a skinny coyote on my favorite childhood cartoon. I always wanted Wile E. Coyote to catch that stupid, taunting bird and roast its little ass over a fire. I know there are fan drawings depicting that very scenario, and wouldn’t doubt someone’s put together a Looney Tunes snuff film because the outrage was just too much to bear. If only we’d known just how wonderfully dreadful real roadrunners are, and if only some of that sick twisted truth would have translated into the Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show.

This is him. Cute little murderbird!

My roadrunner sighting happened as I was driving from the campsite to the general store—it’s not terribly far, but hello, my name is Lazy, and I just put up a tent IRL and wasn’t about to hoof it. I almost ran it over, and it was a close call because the thing was taking its sweet time getting to the edge of the road, as though it saw my car and was like, What. Bitch? After staring at it for a minute, I made my way to the store. Being approximately 5-years-old when it comes to animals, I told the cashier I just saw a roadrunner as though he cared or was my mom and also I am five. But he was game (God love him and his kindness) and proceeded to tell me all about our friend, the roadrunner.

For example, if you’re driving through the park and hit some random bird and it happens to stick to your grille, the roadrunner will come up to your parked car and rip that carcass right off of there for ya and proceed to chow down. When I gawped at this, he sort of got this contemplative look and proceeded to tell me about a day he and some customers were at the store and looked out to see an amazing sight: three rare, colorful birds, bright and beautiful, congregating right there on the pavement just outside the window. Everyone was enchanted and delighted, sharing the moment in a crystalline bubble of wonderment…then a roadrunner comes zooming out of nowhere, stabs one of the pretty little birdies in the head with its beak, and proceeds to dismember it right there in front of the horrified audience. It’s like a little Hannibal Lecter bird! It’ll eat your parakeet’s liver with fava beans and a nice Chiantiiiii. Actually, according to park literature, the roadrunner literally lives on the blood of its enemies. Seriously, their main source of hydration is the blood of their kills. Now isn’t that some Vlad the Impaler shit or what?

On my second day at Big Bend, I ventured out to see some sights. I didn’t get crazy with the hiking but did take some rumbly roads to see weird rocks (and in my head, repeating and repeating, T.S. Eliot—who else—“There is shadow under this red rock,/(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)," documented thusly.

I enjoyed the walk up to look over the valley where the Rio is nestled as it afforded some strange scenes, like this bridge over boggy waters where all the foliage is blasted gray and lay flat as though some life leeching weapon had detonated and they decided to build a park upon it. The bridge itself was ridiculously boingy which I kind of enjoyed because what’s the worst that could happen, I fall into the slimy, slurpy watermud and, I don’t know, yell until someone drags me out? It actually did remind me of that part in LOTR: Two Towers where Smeagol leads Sam and Frodo through the Dead Marshes—very similar except no (visible) bodies.

Much of the path was walled in with plants and trees pushing inward, and there were many spots where everything would snarl together into dense patches of thicket which somehow made me feel safer. The top of the hill rendered lovely views of surrounding hills and the lush greenery around the river itself, and after doing the one, two, three, okay we’ve seen it now can we go it was time to go back down the stone steps and set up for dinner.

Stars! Both nights I stayed up as long as I could, but I was in bed (1st night, the wind cavern/tent, 2nd night, the car) by ten at the latest, so really the best stargazing didn’t happen until I had to get up to go to the restroom. Oh the days when I might have missed all those starry opportunities, but not anymore! Especially if it is cold, and if I wake even just a little, then I’m lying there cursing at or to whom I don’t know, and it is time to unzip the zipper of the tent, negotiate shoes and flashlight and overcoat, and trudge through the dark to the dimly lit facilities. Thrice the first night, twice the second.

 As groggy as I was, I still made myself stop and look up and wonder at what I had been missing for all these years. If you are in a part of the country with good stargazing opportunities, do not take it for granted. I am grateful that I will never recover from the awe of considering the universe and just where we are in it. And there are no words for how it feels to be able to do what I am doing now…not the opportunity (for which I am separately grateful, of course) but the ability to do it at all.

When I first got sober, I was terrified of the night. Every hour of darkness was spent wrapped tight in low grade anxiety. Going anywhere outside was not acceptable and to be avoided at all costs, and every hour was spent wrenching my hands together, watching the clock, and dreading the time I would have to go to bed and turn out the lights. I never had the TV off, ever. Since my drinking was uniform (wake up, go to work, start drinking after work, drink until bedtime, sleep 6 hours, repeat) and my nights were dedicated to one endeavor and one endeavor only, was it any wonder why the terror sunk in as soon as the sun set?

That first year of sobriety was full of every emotion you can imagine—and in full, clear technicolor—and so much of it was truly wonderful, but it’s hard to think back to those nights spent clenched in despair. I didn’t think I would get over it; though I’d been coached I could find a “new normal,” it still seemed a fool’s dream. And the thought of driving almost 800 miles to the middle of nowhere to camp outside and stand in the middle of the darkness to contemplate the universe by myself without imploding in a fury of panic stricken, introspective horror…unthinkable. Insane. Impossible.

Thank God, the Lutheran Hospital in Brooklyn, the Resource Counseling Center, and my own inner strength (which I never believed I had until these past couple of years), for getting me to this place. I feel like I could stand on the edge of the earth and fall backwards into the universe, to whatever’s next, come what may. Give me all the stars and endless nights of clear eyed and brilliant reverie.

Big Bend National Park, Really Really Far Away, Texas

Wow.

Wow wow wow wow.

That's all my idiot brain could think as I drove to the Big Bend National Park, then through it, to get to the Rio Grande Village campground. The Chisos mountains are knock-you-on-your-ass breathtaking, and it was honestly a challenge to focus on the driving and stop gawping. So much twisty, windy, hilly roadway--there may have been an exclamation of "Wheee" or three, no lies.

Full disclosure: The last time I camped in a tent was when I was very little (maybe 4-6) and it was pretty much a disaster. It's a whole story, with drenching rains, a soggy tent, and a dog with half a face. It just gets more awful with details, so suffice it to say it ended with a rainbow and my written-in-stone belief that I would never camp again.

Did y'all know camping is cheap? It is--some places are just $7 a night--at least one place I looked into was free. And that's where the idea started. It wasn't exactly because I wanted to camp, per se, but as the idea bloomed, so did the appeal of the challenge. Never pitched a tent (or knew how it was done), never worked a camp stove or built a fire, knew absolutely nothing about camping (how it works, where to park, where to put the tent, what tools I would need, etc.)--so I started studying in the months I was breaking down my apartment, getting rid of stuff, and making plans to head to Kansas.

I made my lists, revised them, cross compared pricing of different items, and read many, many online reviews to get a sense of what I would need, what to expect, and help start narrowing down to the list to what is required (because there is a whole lotta extra crap you don't actually need).

I even watched videos on how to put up a tent...which they kept saying was a "two man job," but it turns out it just takes one woman.

That's right, I said it. Me. (C'mon, you had to know that was coming.)

So, when I practiced putting up the tent in mom's living room it was probably a bit too easy. I made sure not to rely on things I wouldn't have with me at the campsite, but I was still on carpet, in a climate controlled environment, out of the sun and wind. Once I was doing it "for real" at Big Bend, I got most of the tent up without breaking too much of a sweat, but hammering the tent pegs in turned out to be a real bitch. I did it, though--I got them in and they were nice and tight. I felt triumphant and made a sandwich. Mighty yawps abound.

Well, then came the night.

I stayed up until maybe 10 o'clock--I wanted to see the stars I was promised and I was not disappointed. The skies were clear and as the night progressed the sky grew brighter and brighter with a clean view of all those distant suns. But I was tired from all my mighty tent building and campsite set up, so I went to bed. And of course woke up about two hours later needing to visit the communal ladies room. Because I'm old, it was cold, and ya know, nature. Ugh.

The camp was so quiet that every noise I made felt jet engine loud, from the zip of the tent door to the crunch of my feet on the gravel--don't get me wrong, there were night sounds of little bugs and whatnots peeping and cheeping, but it was otherwise completely windless and silent. Every footstep I made sounded like a titan crashing all the stone pillars of the world and I was sure the whole camp could hear me. When I came out of the ladies room, I happened to look up and nearly fell down. What a difference two hours makes...millions of stars and not one cloud in the sky. I don't think I've ever seen the night sky quite like this, not ever in my life, not even as a child.

I was very tired, though, so titan stomped back to my campsite, felling more cities and waking the rest of Texas along the way, zipped myself up into my tent and my sleeping bag, and tried to settle back down. All in all, it was going pretty well! I had put up a tent. I had a flashlight. I was sleeping in nature and not freaking out. It was good.

I was in a doze when it started. A hollow sound that seemed too far away to be of any consequence, except that it was.

Did I forget to mention the wind forecast for that night? It said 30-35 mph winds, with 50 mph gusts. The night was so still up until that point that I figured the forecast had simply been wrong. Not so. Not at all.

For the rest of the night the wind shook my tent, yanked it to and fro, beat it up, down, left, and right. Three of four tent pegs came loose, leaving the tent anchored by one stubborn peg and one highly annoyed occupant, curled tight in a ball of shivering distress. One of the flaps of the canopy also came loose and whapped it up all night long.

The wind howled and roared, receded, then would scream and gust and caterwaul and there was just no end to it. And no consistency of course, since this wasn't some breeze coming off the mountain to gently lilt all the little baby animals to sleep. No, this was the wailing and screeching of the banshees locked in the 4th circle of Hell, spewed up from graves in the dark folds of the canyons to shriek us through the night and into daylight so that eleven full hours in that tent equaled maybe four or five hours of actual sleep. I'm guessing.

It was like living in that Night on Bald Mountain part of Fantasia except there were no ripped demonoids, just me in my little tent made of tissue paper and tears.

But I did it! I made it through the night with zero panic attacks and only just a little tired. Although I did pack up the tent that very morning and prepped the car for sleeping. Because nope. Nope nope nope. That was enough of that.

More Big Bend later...gotta motor.

San Antonio to Rio Grande Village Campsite (Big Bend) - 459 Miles SING ALONG CAR SONGS

As I write this from the Roswell Public Library, it is a bit of a strain to recall everything I wanted to relay, but I will do my best in the short time I have before I must leave for Albuquerque (a quick, unplanned stop to pick up supplies).

Traveling alone is not an alien concept to me. I've been dragging my luggage and different versions of myself home to visit family since I moved to New York in 2001. Before that, I spent countless hours in the car driving back and forth from Overland Park to Lawrence to complete my Master's degree.

Traveling with people can be a drag--sometimes it is fine if you and your traveling companion are simpatico (it has nothing to do with whether you're an asshole; two like minded assholes can travel far and accomplish many assholish things together in harmony), but if you like being alone (like me) and find it difficult to maintain long stretches of banter (like me), co-traveling can be exhausting (like me).

However, it seems even I--the self proclaimed hermit with misanthropic tendencies--do not like to be alone for too long. More on that later. But the first sign of loneliness strain? Probably talking to oneself, and singing to oneself. And talking to the Google maps lady who tells you where to go. Most the time I tell her she's doing a good job; sometimes I get mean when she disappoints me and leads me the wrong way (even if it is only temporary). And most the time I feel okay about it because every blue moon she asks "Did you just say something?" which makes me thinks she is listening, which is also very creepy because most the time she never says a word no matter how much I yell at her and call her names. Only when I am alone in the dark at a remote rest stop, then it's all "What was that you said, Erin?" And then I'm falling out of the car...though to what safe place I couldn't tell you.

On my drive through Texas, since I couldn't listen to the radio whenever I was near a destination (or driving around in town) for fear of missing one of her directions, I would sing to myself. Lots of Texas things. It started with "All My Exes Live in Texas," and expanded to the Dallas Theme, followed by "Deep in the Heart of Texas," leading of course to "Foolin' Around" by Patsy Cline since I couldn't remember how "San Antonio Rose" went so my brain short circuited and that's where it landed. Oh, and when I got to the Alamo, "Whomp, There It Is." This makes total sense, at least to me. Because whoomp, there it was.

"All My Exes" is by far the best one because you can get some real twang going on that one, then pert near soon you're wrastlin cows and spittin chaw (which I did finally see, several times in fact, and always in the vicinity of either a cow or a truck). Deep in the Heart of Texas!

Before Big Bend, there was one night sleeping at the rest stop. Now this was the rest stop your mother warned you about. The comparison between the brand new rest stops I stayed at previously and this rest stop was day and freakin' night. Very dark, just horizontal parking, trucks and cars together like some heathen, Mad Max mash up, and bathrooms from maybe the 50s or 60s, still serviceable, but broken down, badly lit, and creeptastic.

After my initial discomfort, I slept like a baby. It's wrong, I know, but as my mother will tell you, I would sleep through a category 5 tornado. I would be up in the tornado, snoring. Loudly. At the rest stop, I would awaken a bit when a particularly noisy semi would roll right past my nose, but barely long enough to register where I was before slipping back into my weird dreams of twisty rollercoaster highways looping all around, over, and through the earth. By the way, this "Erin Sleeps Through Tornadoes" lore will be funny later on when I tell you about my first night in Big Bend. Oh the fanciful lies we tell ourselves.

Next stop: Big Bend National Park!

Igo Library, San Antonio, Texas

Save any unplanned side trips, this will be my last Texas library visit, since the next scheduled visit will be in Roswell, New Mexico, sometime while I am camping out at Bottomless Lakes State Park.

Before stating anything else, the most important observation: I have been typing away for two hours uninterrupted. The temperature is perfect, the sound levels are at a droning, nonsensical murmur. the chair (standard wooden school house) is comfortable, and my back is to the stacks on the farthest wall from a huge bank of windows. In other words: Igo Library is an ideal place to write and I am glad I decided to come here, even if I can only stay a little while longer.

Igo is located in a suburban part of town (the unmistakable McHouses abound)--both interior and exterior structures remind me of a barn, but a very artsy barn full of pine desks, no nonsense metal stacks, and scorching bright light that reaches every corner of the room.

Unfortunately I should leave soon. I need to stop for provisions before my first official camping trip. Wish me luck. I know it is one thing to put together a tent by myself in my mother's living room, and quite another to put it together in the Wild, with the sun beating down and the wind yanking everything to and fro. If you find a wrecked, half tent in your back yard with a petrified lizard in it, know that I can always just sleep in my car! Give the lizard some water.

Georgetown to San Antonio, 112 miles + 1 wasabi glob

This may be my last post. In life. I accidentally ate a whole wasabi glob.

Before the fateful moment, I started my trip to San Antonio sort of late. Last night I decided I just wanted to veg in the lap of semi luxury so I decided to stay in Georgetown. I negotiated a rate I could live with at the Best Western Plus and made my way to the room. This guy was waiting by the elevator.

It immediately made me think of Allie Brosh's delightful story of "The Simple Dog Goes on a Joy Ride," where Simple Dog sees a horse statue (No Hoorse Noooo), goes berserkers, and runs wild and far from the scary horse-thing because who wouldn't.

They served breakfast which was awesome. You could have eggs and ham or biscuits and gravy, but I chose the "Make Your Waffle" option and wouldn't you know it: Texas.

Via the map, the drive from Georgetown (north of Austin) to San Antonio seems like you are going from one town to another, with stretches of nothing along the way, but the commerce on either side of the highway never ended, so it really just seemed like one, long city of cheap eats and gas stations, at least until I got to San Antonio proper. I suppose I will see enough open road on the way to my next stop, Big Bend.

I considered visiting the Alamo, but who knew how jam packed and centrally located it was?? From pictures it looks like it's out in the desert somewhere, but that's not the case at all. It is surrounded by restaurants, bars, and hotels, plus all kinds of paid parking, connected by interweaving, circling streets that are sometimes one way and sometimes cut down to one lane with no warning. It was great fun circling, but I decided nah. I took some photos out the window while at stoplights (always at stoplights, never while in motion) and so here I present to you probably the Alamo. I am 98% sure. Through the trees.

After all, isn't the important thing that I remembered the Alamo?

If this is not the Alamo, then I present to you this impressive tree.

On the way to my one library visit in San Antonio, I was starting to get the hunger shakes (it seems hot sugar bread shaped like Texas isn't all that filling), saw a promising sushi place, and turned in. I read some Google reviews before actually committing to the place, but the majority were stellar so I went for it. Things I have to say about Sapporo:

Scene of the crime.

1. Cute place. Brightly lit. Colorful.
2. Interesting cut outs along the back wall and next to my table.
   
3. I am used to New York portions so ordered way too much. I guess everything is bigger in Texas.
4. I got the crunchy roll and the spicy tuna roll which equaled one big honkin roll and two still relatively big honkin rolls. 
   

   

   Fateful wasabi glob pictured here.

5. The rice-to-filling ratio was way off. Way too much rice. I ate a lot of it, but ended up picking the bits out of the middle in the end and pushing the leftover rice sleeves to the side. 
6. The flavor was fine though I did engage the soy sauce this time. 
7. Sapporo has perhaps the hardest working waiter I have ever seen. He had serious hustle. He had a ton of tables, but was taking care of everything, including busing. He never disappeared, he just kept going, and it didn't seem to bother him whenever the hostess kept loading him up with more tables. 
8. Finally, in the midst of lunching, I managed to eat a whole wasabi glob. It was hiding under a roll that had fallen apart. I was reading an article on my phone. There was a lack of focus. Then there was a white light and a Robed Man calling me Home.

I am feeling much better as I write this, but lesson learned. Watch the wasabi. Ware the wasabi. It wants you to eat it.

Austinique

Things about Austin, the long and short of it:

The traffic is surprising for a city this size, but considering the city in question I suppose it is to be expected. Austin is surely an “oasis in the desert” for counterculture, so you could see why people flock here to be among like minded souls. Perhaps one day the city population and traffic will sync up.

I finally found Austin’s downtown and I must declare that it is The Cutest Downtown I Have Ever Seen in My Life. It was on the way to the Alamo Drafthouse, as it turns out. For the remainder of my time in Austin, every time I drove by or through it, I screamed at it as though it were a basket of baby highland cows, you know the kind you can carry around? I managed to take some lame, gray day pictures, shared here, but Google has plenty of better shots so look at those, too. It’s a major Squeee. Cutest downtown everrr.

I also finally found the “weird” in Austin, though to me it just looked like Brooklyn. Lots and lots of tats, long beards, multicolored hair, and newsboy caps, so many newsboy caps. I’m guessing that fashion sense, the art and music scene, and the far more lefty leaning political sensibilities are the “weird” part, but God willing (YES I SAID GOD DID I STUTTER) it will only get more like that, not less. I dragged 6th street, with its vibrant scene of bars, restaurants, clubs, and noise, even though it was the bright of day and I never intended to Hit the Scene, I just ended up there and everyone was driving 5 mph so, you know, go with the flow, try to look fly in my momcar. It was around this area where I happened to see one of those pedal-yourself-and-drink-beer-trolleys, which made me laugh and then twisted my stomach a little because all I could think was how that constant motion would make all the beer and food in your gut go churnchurnchurn. I wonder how many people hurl after or even during the ride.

Come play wif us, Danneeeeee

The Alamo Drafthouse is worthy of the hype. The South Lamar location had tons of cool old movie posters, funhouse embellishments, and the greatest touch of all: the long carpet of the Overlook Hotel extending to the back wall where a huge print completed the picture. Iconic. I also loved the surrounding area, with 2cool 4school apartments across the street and lovely murals on the way into the parking garage. I am especially glad I saw Get Out there. It was a phenomenal movie and the surreal, mesmerizing aspects were only heightened by experiencing it in a strange place among strange strangers. I’ve been thinking about that movie since I saw it—the effects of which I’ve chronicled to some degree here, but still I turn it over and over in my hands and marvel at it. It’s not the greatest movie of all time, but it is one of those rare movies that nestles into your brain and rewires you a bit, even if for just a little while. This takes a great deal of skill, and Jordan Peele has managed to create something vivid, blistering, hysterical, excruciating, and permanent.

One of the great parts of the Alamo Drafthouse experience is getting to eat real food while watching the movie. It’s not an alien concept at this point, of course, since we have the same services at the downtown Warren in Wichita (and there are similar offerings all over the country), but I rarely go out to the movies and have only experienced this type of movie going experience once (which was a horrifying disaster), so it felt exotic to me. The pricing is completely reasonable, and you get fast service and great food. I ordered the Royale with Cheeseburger and a Dr. Pepper. The fries were yummy but the burger was sublime. I know people love bacon on things, and I don’t exactly disagree, but I am a Fussbudget McFussypants about how it is prepared. I hate the fatty part, but I can eat it if it is almost burnt. This burger featured crunchy smoked bacon, with no fatty or rubbery grossness, cooked well done and just perfect. The burger itself was juicy with lots of flavor. A++

On to San Antonio ever so briefly, then it’s camp-o-rama!

I have no idea what's goin on.