It was on a cold day on February 7th, and we were going to leave Dallas! (it doesn't sound like an Arabic storyteller, does it?) and it was my cousin's Sophie's birthday. We would call her later on. So, anyway, in Virgina... okay I'm losing my marbles...it's 6 in the morning. I'm tired.
What do you think the Fiddler on the Roof is about?
Okay, okay, I got to focus on the blog now. Did you know that a rooster and dog and cat were the first animals up in a hot air balloon?
BACK TO THE BLOG!
Okay, anyway, in Virgina, at a campground called Camp Beth Page that was one of the first we saw, a lifeguard named Clark told us about all the cool places he had gone with his Mom in the west, and he told us many things, but one of them stayed in my mind the longest. It was that Clark had said that in Northern Texas, there were Cadillacs standing out of the ground. I wanted to see that so much, and I asked Mom and Dad, with the dream in mind, if we could drive there and see it. Googling it we found out that it was a town called Amarillo- don't you love armadillo's?- and that it was in the very North part of Texas. Clark had said there were a host of other weird things in Northern Texas, so we would try to see those too. I was glad we were going though, none the less. On the way there, we would stop at Buffalo Springs Lake R.V. Park, in Lubbock, Texas. Hey, guess what? I haven't realized this until now...my friend Lauren, do you remember her from a few blogs back? Well her parent's home town is in Lubbock, she told me in a text and pictures. I didn't even know that until now. Huh. I wish I had told her when we were there. Well, I guess you live and learn, as the phrase goes. Live and learn, learn and live, and live learn, and learn live. live learn and. It's 6 in the morning.
But, wait! We could not pull out and drive, because for the last few days and even now, the shower wasn't working! Nope, thankfully it wasn't that hot water heater thing. So many professionals had said they'd fix it and then it broke again, but the Cajun Rednecks in Scott, LA, surprisingly were the ones that fixed it. Anyway, on February 7th we had trouble with actually turning the valve, you know, it wouldn't push and produce water. So, we called up one of those usuallylatesmellsbadsarcastic mechanics that we always get (maybe all mechanics are like that) and spent the morning unwashed. I, on the other hand (why do people say that, is it really on the other hand?) wanted to take a shower before the mechanic got her, and was all stuffed up in my head with snot (sorry for the gross words) so I got all my materials together and walked on the gravel with flip-flops and went to the shower and restroom building, a small one on a small hill a little away from us. You know, I have used the R.V. park's shower a few times, but weirdly no times on the first part of the trip. Also, we've had so many problems in this half of the trip then we had in the entire first half. Bike stolen, hot water heater, camera broke, coat forgotten, Mom sick, the list could go on and on. And now a still-born valve!
I got on the left side and looked through doors to a reception hall, or rec as they call them these days. Passing a green door that went to a laundry room, I entered the thing by that green wooden thing in front and went in. Not very large, with two showers on one end and a toilet, with no stall doors or anything. Gross. I tried to lock the door, and put my stuff on the sink which was on the right past the toilets. The first shower read OUT OF ORDER so I didn't go in it. When they say out of order do they mean that it's supposed to be first but is really last? Sorry, it's 6 in the morning. It won't be when Mom edits and publishes it, but it is now. I couldn't get any water except a stiff cold spray, like something a superhero with water powers would shoot out, so I left. Dad actually came back with me and got it hot, and then I did a fine hot water, with nothing important to tell you. Upon my return, to my amazement, the mechanic wasn't here yet. I changed out of my white t shirt and shorts, and got sensible clothing, as we waited some more. Dad actually left to do something, I don't really remember what it was. It's 6 in the morning right now, just if you didn't know. Then the dirty truck arrived in the place the Jeep should be. This would be interesting.
The dude was skinny, with a black little beard, and those dirty hands and mud in the fingernails that resembles a London Chimney Sweep, or a hobo in New York. He smelled like a skunk thrown into a pool of rotten eggs and then taken to the planet of bad smelling people and living there for years and years and years, and being swallowed and then barfed up by a monster, and then coming here. Yeah, and he smelled of smoke. It took a long time for that toxic waste of a smell to go away. While he worked in the back and got tools, coming back and forth, we left the door open, hoping against hope the odor would decrease, and most of our efforts were in vain. I blogged a little and read A Tramp Abroad, and I have to say that it was funny at parts but also boring, about rafting down the Nectar in the Rhine Valley and such. Finally, it worked and Dad paid the man, scared of touching his hands. Then, everyone got ready, and we went through the whole process which if you have already read some of my blogs then you know what I mean. Electric cord in, running, spitting from the gas of the generator, running to tell them to turn off the water pum...I can't go on. It's 6 in the morning.
We drove a long time, 4 to 5 hours. The scenery was more than our expectations. It was actually the thing I had been waiting for the whole time we had been in Texas: cowboy country. We saw oil wells, and I was up with Dad most of the time, and he told me a few funny stories and we chatted about some things. There were dirt piles by the dozens, and flat hills and valleys, like the places the cowboys walked on in my Deadwood Jones book. There was that known shrub plant, the green small bush rooted to the ground. The grand wild old west of Texas! Oh, it was so great. In Lubbock now, we entered off the highway and into less populated regions, still with the deserty background. I called Maddie Jordan to tell Sophie happy b-day. No answer. Voice Message. Same thing for Aunt Tammy, that Rebecca called and Uncle Jeff that I called. I don't think they've called us since, really. Weird. But the wind was rolling in a tempest out there in the desert, and we were pushed right and left from the incoming breeze power. I couldn't believe all of those particles swishing us right and left. It was like a whale hitting us; yeah that's how strong it was. We went through a gatehouse where some people told us that the place was the Buffalo Springs Lake. Dad didn't know exactly where we were and what site we were going to get, and there was no sign of any R.V. sites or even R.V.'s, just a big beautiful lake canyon, with trees and a lake at the bottom. He stopped the R.V., and we then stayed inside, and Dad went in the jeep to investigate.
He came back, and said that we were in A or B of the park. We went down into the park, through a twisty road and we looked around at dirt sites, all vacant. It was like a ghost town, nobody there except us and maybe a few others. On the trip before then we've seen some pretty desolate places, the tumbleweeds always present. I guess they like places where other people aren't. But anyway, we went down with some trees on our sides, and I was in the front seat, Mom in the jeep and Dad in the front seat, with Rebecca playing with her barbies. It was hard to get down there, the R.V. moving this and that. We parked by an abandoned area for restrooms, up on a small hill. We were by a pretty big lake, the evening sun coming down and putting her red and orange colors glistening off the blue water, and the mixture of red and blue, like Superman or a Smurf with blood on his hands, with an orange police vest that the housewives see in traffic when dropping off their children. Can you have a guilty Smurf who's also a police man? That's crazy. But anyway, Mom and Dad set up the R.V., and I came out, in the screaming cold. It was like being hit with an ice cube rainstorm or something. Only cold because of the wind. I put on some jackets, and went out. So cold. I ran around, for exercise.
We had no satellite or cable, so we read and talked a little, having a hot spaghetti and a warm night. Because of the place being kind of sketchy, Dad stayed up in the front with the bed in, and I went to sleep soundly. The next day would bring the Grand Canyon of Texas, R.V.'s sticking out of the ground, dirty hands on the Bourne family, and frozen pipes both in the R.V. and ourselves, because of the cold. Please read it. You'll be glad you did. Goodbye for now.
International Women's Day...Why don't they have a day for us manly men?,
Andrew.
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| Just a few days earlier it was 80*! |
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| I bet this place is hopping in the summertime |
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| We were ALONE! |
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