Running Afoul Of Baden-Powell

An Undisclosed Location in the West


Someone needs to understand.

I can make a fire, almost anywhere, out of the merest twigs and scraps of paper. Really. In ancient times, in the boy scouts, I even made fire with a friction bow. I remember how hard it was to keep the sweat rolling down my arms and off my forehead from putting it out before it got started. And ordinarily I do not make extravagant fires, being content with enough to cook on, with a little left over for contemplation.

In honor of simplicity and parsimony in this regard, I even once invented the World's Lightest Woodburning Backpack Stove. Guaranteed to boil water in 5 minutes and leave no trace bigger than the heel of your boot.

Don't believe me?

All it consisted of was 3 wire tent stakes and a foot and a half of aluminum foil. You stuck the stakes in the ground, making a triangle maybe 6 inches or so on a side. Angle the tops inward so as to support your pot. Make sure it's stable and can hold the weight. Then you make a ball of tinder, either paper or leaves or softened dead bark, and place it in the center. Collect a double hand full of twigs, none bigger than your finger, and pile them on top. Then wrap the stakes with the aluminum foil, leaving one side slightly open to vent. You won't need much of a crack for draw. What you end up with looks like a tiny shiny teepee, maybe 6 inches high, stuffed with twigfall.

Or, more appropriately, a small volcano.

Open the foil enough to light the paper, then close it up. This thing burns hot and fast, so have a supply of twigs to feed it. Where there's trees, there's always twigfall. Every day. You shouldn't have any problem.

All the heat is funneled up to the pan. When you are through, you eat. By the time you're through, the twigs have burned to feathery ash and the stakes have cooled. Remove them, fold up the foil, and grind the ashes under your heel. Scatter them in a short arc, and from 10 feet away you won't be able to see where you've been cooking. Move on.

As a parting gesture, you can pee on it, but it's not necessary, and may be way too fussy. No, let's not go there.

The whole thing is made of things you are using elsewhere, and adds no weight to your pack at all. Try it, you'll be surprised.

Now why am I telling you this? Just to show I had some experience in building fires before I went to the grocery store in Benbrook and bought a sack of what appear to be mesquite chunks from Big John's Wood Products of Ft. Worth.

I can't get this stuff to burn for nothin'.

Usually the stuff in campgrounds is easy to start with 4 or 5 sheets of newspaper and a few twigs. There's no profit for the parks if you don't consume it all each night and come back for more. Big John has found some sort of wonder wood, but before I go home I am determined to reduce it to ash.

I've tried three times, not counting dozens of relights and rebuildings. All you get is a smoky sort of roseate glow that punks it's way through the night. Hardly any flame. The first two times I used up the Saturday edition of the Dallas Morning News and a couple of paper plates to little satisfactory effect. I think Big John is missing a bet by not offering these wooden heat shields to NASA.

Last night I lost it. I rolled up a section of newspaper, stuck it down in the generator tank, and let is soak for 20 seconds or so. Then I built the fire on top of that. There was a satisfying !Whumph!, and actual flames jumped into the air. Content with the world, I went inside to bring out dinner. Half an hour later, I was back to that hellish creeping glow.

You might be able to see it burning if you stood right over it.

Well, tonight is going to be different. Doc Martin, my sainted old scoutmaster, has passed on now, and I am beyond shame anyway. I've nothing to lose. This afternoon I pulled my cap down over my eyes, turned up the collar of my shirt, and went to town. I bought a quart of charcoal lighter. There's 4 logs left. There will be fire tonight.

Look for the glow, low on the horizon.

Surely even Baden-Powell could not be wholly displeased. I'm only using one match.


The Fireman

Gotta Love That Old Camp Cookin'

Lake Whitney again


I've been traveling and eating out too much. As a result my fridge is full of stuff about to turn on me. I found myself hungry after a long walk (why do I even bother?), so I had a good look in there. I'm not sure what to call what I came up with. It's obviously some kind of stir fry, but the Chinese don't usually fool around with oregano and olive oil. In honor of my retirement, I thought about calling it Freedom Fry, but it sounds so goofy Congress has already claimed it.

So I guess it's just Salvage Fry, unless you can think of something better. Be kind. It turned out pretty darned good.

Here's my recipe, gratis. First, carefully open the door to the fridge and sniff. If nothing knocks you down, proceed. If you fall on the floor, proceed anyway. Be a Marine, fer chrissakes. Get yourself back up and seal the unit with duct tape for later industrial disposal.

What do you mean you don't have duct tape? You can't cook without duct tape!

Assuming all goes well, collect everything that is about to go bad. Discard whatever has already turned the corner. If necessary, make a trip to the dumpster. It will improve your appetite.

Have a care with your selection. The author will not be responsible for unfortunate errors involving trips to the emergency room.

In my case there were 4 ears of corn, a quarter pound of deli ham (sliced thin), half a red onion, a half pound of once fresh asparagi, and a potato. The potato wasn't so bad, so I put it back. If your selection differs, just insert the relevant garbage in the following instructions.

Now, dribble some olive oil in a cast iron skillet. Cut the corn from the cobs into the skillet. Discard the cobs, unless you are ambitious. Next, slice up the ham, red onion, and asparagi, and add them to the growing pile. Add oregano and black pepper to taste. Put the skillet over medium heat and stir this mess around until the asparagi start to get soft. I mean from cooking, not the bacterial decay. You are now done. Pour it all on a paper plate. Really. If you were particular about china, you would not have read this far.

To go with this I tried to make some of Don Lampson's famous skillet toast, but the combination of butter and residual olive oil gave it a wangy taste, and you can tell how finicky I am. Your luck may be better.

For dessert I recommend a second glass of cabernet, a small campfire in the twilight, and a view across Lake Whitney. That's what I'm having.

But then I'd recommend this even if you were cooking.

Bon Appetit.

Bob

Nostalgia Attacks and Dinosaur Tracks

Lake Whitney


I left Lake Dallas about 10 am Monday. While breakfasting on pork chops at the Lake Dallas Cafe, I overheard some sage advice from a fellow at the next table, talking about a recent stay in the hospital.

"Man, they gave me a shot - what was it, honey?- Demerol? - I think that's it. Man that stuff makes you old before your time. I was OUT for the rest of the day. Goofy. Couldn't stay awake. And then they wanted to give me another one when I was gettin' out the door, but I said no way - no way. My life is excitin' enough without having to chase a glass of water round the table."

"I dunno, Carl. There's people would pay good money to see that..."

I drove back through Ft. Worth and down to Glen Rose. This is about the northern edge of the hill country, and about as pretty an area as there is anywhere. Not awesome or dramatic like the Rockies or the coast of Maine, but gently green and appealing. Friendly looking.

Come over a hill and the land just smiles at you. Lots of shallow rivers running between low limestone bluffs.

I haven't been here since 1955. Almost 50 years. During the summers of my 8th and 9th year, my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to go off to Glen Lake Methodist Youth Camp. I learned to canoe and fire clay ashtrays and weave a lanyard out of something that looked like blue and white vinyl shoelace material. I was away from home for the first time. It was great.

When I asked in town, they said it was still here, down by the river. I drove right by it without seeing anything, and had to circle around. This is it? What's with all the buildings? They used to have screened shelters back under the trees that we slept in, and there were hinged 4X8 pieces of plywood over the windows, and you had to prop them up with a board. The older kids would come along at night and kick out the boards and beat on the plywood and wake everybody up. Our 'counselor' sometimes slept through the whole thing like a stone.

This place is too small. They've got air conditioning. What's up with that? The sign says "Glen Lake Youth Camp and Adult Retreat Center". Back then adults didn't bother to retreat, they just charged ahead and sent us off to camp.

Then I came around a building and saw the big white cross on the cliff above the river. Yeah, this is the place.

I used to hike up there all the time. And these two swimming pool looking things, they must be the upper and lower lakes. And there's the spring. Doggone if they haven't built a garish waterslide park beside it. And there's Vista Point, where we had evening services. Heck, it's not even a quarter mile down there.

I found the director down by the canoe rack, or she found me, and she filled me in on the local history. Turns out that competition is brisk in the youth camp business, and they've had to expand the facilities until there's hardly any open area left. There used to be lots of room here, to chase around in and raise Cain. It's all so orderly and neat now.

Air conditioned.

I don't know what I expected. A little slice of my youth preserved here, I guess. It's been too long. Maybe I wanted some palpable, concrete spur to memory, something inspiring. I'd love to be able to write something like Dylan Thomas did, about the place he grew up in, the "farm forever fled from the childless land":

"And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns,
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only..."

But no cigar. This place is just a business, and it's not my business to be here anymore.

I went by the Dinosaur Valley State Park outside of town, thinking to spend the night. But they wanted $23 for that privilege, which was startling to me after paying $10 for a site 6 feet from the lake at Benbrook. What's the attraction? The campground is just a hot green spot in the brush. There's nothing to see here but the dinosaur footprints, and I don't want to see them now.

I saw them when I was 8 years old, and they'll never look any better than they did then.

On the road to Meridian I stopped in a roadside park to go back and get a cola out of the fridge, and got to reading the sign there. Turns out I was standing a quarter mile from the remains of the boyhood home of John Lomax, the collector of folk songs. He left Bosque county at the age of 20 with a pocket full of cowboy ballads, and spent a long career recording and collecting stories and songs from all across the country, culminating in a trip through the south and west in 1939.

He was 72 by then. Some people have such interesting jobs, they just never bother to retire. I remember his name from a songbook I bought in 1964, and I still had it up until last summer when I got rid of all my books.

It was getting to be a long day. I took a look at Meridian State Park, but it was closed, so I came back down here to Lake Whitney. Pretty much full circle for me. I'm gonna lay back here a few days and then go on to Georgetown. I've got to sell that house and get the heck on out of Texas. The weather's starting to warm up, and I don't want to get caught in the oven that is summer here.

What do they call the opposite of a snowbird? A sunbird? That's what I wanna be. Just gotta shake the dust off my wings and fly up north for the summer, and with a little luck I'll get to.


Bob

This Is It! This Is It! What You Get.

Ft. Worth


"Mama, Mama, Make me your boy.
I'm 300 pounds of Heavenly Joy.
This is it. This is it.
What you get."

---Big Smoo and the Trailer Park Kings, at the Main Street Music Festival



I've been trying out a few of my old Grand Unified Thumb Rules for Misanthropic Camping this trip. Foremost among them is this: "Camp in the country on weekdays. Come to the city on weekends." I pulled into Lake Benbrook on Thursday, spent Friday on my annual pilgrimage to the museums in Ft. Worth. (Weekdays are better for Museums also, absent the occasional mobs of kindercritters on field trips.)

Saturday dawns. What to do, what to do? Well, as it happens there's way too much to do. There are 3 separate art and music festivals in the Ft. Worth area alone, and another up in Denton. Not to mention an interesting party I heard about in Muenster, though now we're talking close to Oklahoma, which is a trip in itself.

Why do they schedule these things all at the same time?

Being equally ignorant of all, I opted for the nearest, dragged on my old cowboy boots, and set off for downtown. Maybe, after a few beers, I might remember how to polka. Somewhere in my hindbrain, I may have even contemplated a priapic moment. Shame on me. The idle id is a dangerous thing.

What I got was the usual assortment of $4 turkey legs, cotton candy, $5 canned beer, nowhere to sit, parking lots filled with too many people standing around or slipping on the oil slicks, diesel generators belching smoke, and lots and lots of art without craft and crafts without art.

It was cool.

But "free" music festivals are slick, serious business, no doubt about it. No effort is spared to wear you out and make you spend money on stuff you don't need. What a deal. I came to regret my boots, and long for some cushioned loafers. Fortunately this was still downtown, with a couple of regular bars still open, where a man could rent an air conditioned seat from time to time for the normal price of a draft beer.

The city closed off 9 blocks of Main Street, rented out space for several hundred booths in the center facing out, and by the time I got there the Trinket Treadmill was in full swing, an inordinately slow shamble of thousands of people with glazed eyes, south from Weatherford to 9th and back again. Counterclockwise, round and round.

I made one circuit, just to be sociable. I was looking for a belt. Would you believe in all that mess there was not one belt booth? Just as well, they'd probably have wanted $100 for it.

The music was free, split between 3 stages, and occasionally not too shabby, though you had to be either patient or opportunistically pushy. Whichever worked.

The real entertainment came not with the headliners, but in odd moments in the afternoon, in front of bands I never heard of. Like 4 Way Street, a classic rock band. The 60s are still alive in those old songs. The Dave Alexander Band did a creditable tribute to Bob Wills. Big Smoo and the Trailer Park Kings played some laid-back, trashy, neckpoppin' happy blues.

And there was one wonderfully insane moment with Mass Ensemble.

They made some difficult to classify but definitely interesting music on electric fiddle and a variety of drums. But the center of attention here was the Earth Harp, an electronic instrument whose physical manifestation began by stringing 15 wires from the top of a building a block away, and drawing them down to the stage. Sound was generated by grasping these lines firmly and pulling along them. They are rubbed, not plucked.

I managed to get onto stage between sets and tried it out. You have to wear gloves. It's very physical, and generates a lot of friction heat. The musical effect is a tuned droning, much as if an pipe organ had been made from a stringed instrument. A member of the band told me that sometimes they run this thing from a mountaintop and across a river valley. Miles of wire. Visually dramatic, and something worth hearing.

Sunday I went up to Denton to see what they could do. The venue was much more relaxed, in a park with actual grass, under shade trees, on the TWU campus. You could buy a beer there without having to stand in line somewhere else to get tickets first.

Sunday was Jazz night, mostly played on the blues side and too loud, heavy on the keyboards. But again there were moments. An unamplified quintet kept me smiling for an hour playing old quiet ballads on trombone, bass, and saxophones.

But I left early. I was camped at Lake Dallas, and had to get back before they closed the gates at 10pm. COE camps are pleasant, but they do have this unfortunate idiosyncrasy.

Looking back over this...whatever it is, report... I may seem overly critical. Actually I had a pretty good time this weekend.

And I'm glad it's over.

Me for a beer and a book and a quiet morning by the lake. It's Monday, and time to get back to work at being retired.

I've said it before. Sometimes I just can't get the smile off my face.


Bob

An Ordinary RV Day

Lake Benbrook COE


A storm blew through Lake Whitney last night. The lightning woke me briefly, that and the wind through the windows. I lay there thinking once again about my tenting days, dealing with wet bedrolls and trying to cook just outside the tent flap. Then I rolled over and went back to sleep.

It was just getting light when I got up and started coffee. The birds were somewhat subdued, the lake misty. Slowly a few raw beams of morning light poked through the cloud cover. First sun in days.

Made the world look fresh washed.

Time to load up. The Diner in Whitney was closed. The cloud cover was burning off fast as I headed north toward Cow Town. There was an amazing clot of gulls wheeling above the road near the lake, hundreds of them, folding and rolling like dough being kneaded into bread. While I watched, another line of them approached in a classic V. You know, like 20 or 30 gulls made into one big one. They started right on by the others, but the tip of one wing hit the sphere, got mixed in, and suddenly the whole V wheeled and curled up, sucked into the maelstrom.

I was pumping gas for maybe 15 minutes while this enormous ball of flesh and feathers roiled in restless energy and indecision, going nowhere, just hanging 200 feet above the road. Maybe they've discovered some unhappy equilibrium, like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, and they'll just seethe and circle and fold up there until they all drop exhausted from the sky.

That would make an interesting insurance claim: RV totaled by Gull Storm. Think I'll move along now.

I stopped for breakfast south of Cleburne, at Fat Albert's Country Cookin'. A remarkable crowd, in the middle of the morning. There were a dozen men in there, and not one of them could have weighed less than 250 pounds. Many obviously well over 300. A couple over 400.

When I got my plate I had a good idea why. This is one place where you will never have to say "supersize it." The grits came in a soup bowl.

Aside from everyone assiduously tucking in the groceries, there wasn't much going on this morning. One fellow over in the corner looked exactly like the cartoon character Hank Hill. He never said a word while I was there. He even ordered by pointing at the menu. And yet he always looked like he was about to say something.

There was one garrulous old gent negotiating his way through breakfast.

"What can I get ya, John?"

"O, I'm okay, I guess. I'm doin' my best. My back hurts me, but I spec' it'll get better when the sun gets on it."

"I hope so. But what do you want to eat?"

"Sometime soon I got to have me a plate of pan fried chicken."

"You want chicken for breakfast?"

" I would, if I could get a good'un. But they let'em get too big these days."

His wife finally ordered him some oatmeal. When it arrived in a big bowl, he got a little agitated about where it was placed.

"Now, I've got to have this over there. I can't eat left handed. I just can't. Can you bring me some butter? Oh. Is it? I can't see a damn thing any more....."

The Johnson County Courthouse in Cleburne is a remarkably priapic clock tower rising 7 stories to a round silver dome. It is surrounded at the base on four sides by a massive 4 story office block. I thought the upper tower might be a jail, as there were bars on the vertical windows, but it seems to house empty space. You can see daylight right through it. While thinking about this, somehow I missed my turn onto Hwy 171 and ended up crawling from light to light through miles and miles of strip center wasteland all the way to IH 20 in Ft Worth.

I've never been to a COE park that wasn't neat and generously laid out, and Lake Benbrook is no exception. I took a chance on a site without electricity that was right on the lake. Area 51. Where have I heard that before? Many sites had been already reserved for the weekend, and this was Thursday noon.

It was 80 degrees, with a wind, and I was planning to sit out reading by the water.

A marginal decision. The season is turning warmer. It got up to 85 degrees in the afternoon, and the bugs were out along the shore. Not many mosquitoes, but there is some kind of tiny moth that clings to the underside of oak leaves (and coats the rear of the trailer). If you brush your head going under the leaves, as I am liable to do, these bugs drop down like gray rain of pixie dust, without the vaunted advantage. They fly in your eyes and ears and hair. They don't bite, but they are an persistent ticklish irritation.

I was driven inside, where it seemed 10 degrees warmer, even with the fan.

The insects disappeared with dusk. I built a fire, and watched the lake. Herons and gulls and cormorants are fishing as the light dies. Moving among the snags, shadows on shadow. There's even a few ducks. One thing I like about Benbrook is that they haven't gone crazy with the street lights. There's one on the boat ramp, and another at the entrance, and some smaller lights around the rest rooms, and that's it. Nothing to wash out the stars but Fort Worth herownself, over there in the distance.

It's quiet here, even when the place is full. Peaceful. Now and then you can hear the highway, or a solitary boat across the water, or a fretful young camper crying. But nothing to drown out the slap and ripple of fish in the water.

How does that old Don Williams song go? "Nothing makes a sound in the trees like the wind does."

All in all, it's been just an ordinary day, both on the highway and here in my new lakeside home. I hope to have many more just like it.


Bob

Nothing Could Be Finer Than To Breakfast In A Diner

Lake Whitney, Texas



I had to fish around a bit to find the cafe Kenn Smith recommended. This has to be the one. It's "downtown", across from the medical center. Hope that's a coincidence.

No name on the front, except "Restaurant". Around on the side, away from the road, it says "Pat's Diner".

It is my habit when traveling to eat breakfast out, and make it a big one, thank you. Eggs, ham, biscuits, grits, maybe even a short stack. This seems odd only when you know that at home I seldom have this meal at all. Maybe some yogurt and fruit. Often I just have lunch for breakfast, or vice versa.

But on the road I like it. For one thing it gets me up and out of the trailer. It is usually good food, and a good deal, and a good test. A cook who can ruin eggs is not someone you want messing with your dinner. Another thing is that eggs, bacon, and such are messy to clean up after, cooked in the trailer. Grits stick to the pan.

But the main thing is the conversation. There's no telling what you might hear, especially in small towns like this. Take this morning:

"Hello darlin'. What are you doin' here? Isn't this Wednesday? Don't you come in on Tuesdays?"

"O, they got my schedule mixed up. This week I'm off on Wednesday. What you been up to?"

"Same ole, same ole. You want your usual?"

"Sure. How was your Easter?"

"I took off for Easter. Went to see my Mama. She's been sick."

"You got off on Easter?"

"I took off. Went to Gainesville in my little $200 car. Lord, I thought I was travelin' round the world. You know, I hate goin' to Hillsboro, let alone Gainesville."

"You got a $200 car? You did good. What kind is it?"

"O, it's a '90 Dodge something. Spirit? Y'know, it did just fine, all the way there and back, and then it burned up right here in front of the Church of the Nazarene. It's got to be a Sign." She crossed her arms, and looked to heaven.

"Where did you get it? What happened? What do you mean, burned up? I didn't hear anything burned up."

"This little old man that sold it to me, he comes in here all the time. He says it's some wires, he can fix it. He's kind of a sweetie, and he worries about me. He says he's gonna buy me one of those Trak phones from Walmart, so I don't get stranded somewhere. I just said, 'Thank you, Daddy'."

"Well isn't that nice. Those the ones you don't pay for the call, you just buy it? How much are they?"

"They're $50, I think. Something like that. I don't know....."


And so it goes. A penny's worth of Homer, all in 2 or 3 minutes while she was taking orders from the table in front of me. If you've read this far, maybe you've picked up on the fascination. There's no end to the adventures people have. Just living, just getting by.

Strategies and adventures and risks and failures and triumphs. Most people manage, leaning on others now and then, but sometimes it's a close thing. Most everyone has the same troubles. But the solutions are often quite individual, complex, varied, and ingenious.

I'm hooked. Diners are where I go to get my fix. Who can resist all this drama, plus eggs and a piece of ham the size of a dinner plate, all for less than 5 bucks? Did I mention the biscuits and gravy?

After breakfast I drove around the lake. It's been foggy, dark, and rainy for two days now. Even at noon there's a low damp twilight along the road. But the bluebonnets and the indian paintbrush are in bloom, the cattle seem contented. So, I guess, am I.

My waitress says it's supposed to clear up tonight, so I think I'll hang around and have breakfast here again tomorrow. That ought to get me through the weekend.

Sometimes you don't have to go very far to get a lot of what you're traveling for.


Bob

Freedom's Just A Bonk Away

Lake Whitney State Park
Whitney, Texas
"Best little town by a dam site"


It's been cool, muggy, and intermittently sprinkling all afternoon. Like all Texas State Parks, Lake Whitney has a pay per amenity type fee structure. It's $2 per person to get in, then $14 for a lakeside drive-through site with water and electricity. I'm getting spoiled, and it leads to Sin.

I didn't need electricity, and went for it anyway, paid an extra $5 without even thinking about it. Like $5 was nothing.

My Silas Marner Society credentials will be at risk if this gets spoken of among the Brethren.

Lake Whitney is near Hillsboro, north of Waco (or Wacko, as some think of it). It's a COE site, formed by a dam of the same name across the Brazos River, and is home to 15 governmental parks and any number of private facilities. This is a hard core fishing lake, well stocked. It has a purported surface area of 23,500 acres when water is at the spillway crest, and at flood can contain as much as 1 1/3 million acre-feet of the wet stuff.

Of course you wouldn't want to be here then.

So much for the brochure. Here's what I like: it's very quiet. With the lamentable exception of one other silent fellow at the far end, I have this whole small peninsula to myself.

Well, there is that large boat floating a couple of hundred feet off shore, the one festooned with a dozen rods waiting in racks at the rear, with "Striper Sniper" written on the side. I wondered briefly if that was the name or model. But heck, even they are quiet.

One interesting thing. This state park is situated entirely within a large peninsula jutting out into the lake. There's 137 campsites ranged along the shore. Right in the center of that space, between the banks, is a 2000 foot paved runway, and one end of that is just a short walk from the water. I guess people fly in here to fish, but there are no planes in evidence now. Maybe the Governor will show up.

I'm not a pilot. I've had a couple of heart attacks. Probably couldn't get a license now. But for 3 or 4 years in my 30s I fooled around with a local glider club, roaring up and down beside the runways at Georgetown Airport in an old Ford Galaxie, a big V8 junker with no brakes to speak of, dragging stick-and-canvas sailplanes into the air at the end of a long tow rope.

I am remembering this now because I just got a letter from the Union Benevolent Fund that Floyd Bates died.

Floyd was the Austin fireman, retired many years now, who got me interested in gliders. He was a longtime bachelor, living out on Lake Austin, and he actually built his own glider from plans, over several months, right in his living room. Linen and varnish and wood, two wings that unbolted from the fuselage. I remember he had to remove a big picture window at the front of his house to get all three parts out when he was finished. Built the whole thing for something like $5000.

I can also still picture him diminishing into the sky, circling higher and higher and higher, following a buzzard inside a tiny thermal at the end of a runway during the contest out in Marfa, putting the big boys and their sleek shiny Glasfluegel toys to shame. He could milk a thousand feet out of a thermal that was just a bump on the way down to them. They were too big to get inside it.

"Master" Bates, they called him. I followed far behind with a chase car and a trailer, zigzagging down dusty county roads, tearing across the Texas desert, trying to keep him in sight.

I guess I still am, but once again he won't be needing me. Some things never change.

I'm not a birder, either, but I'm beginning to see how I could become one. No sooner had I parked and put my feet up on the picnic table, lying back with a beer and a book, than the trailer was attacked by a barrage of small birds bearing ragged bits of leaf in their beaks. Unfamiliar creatures: brownish orange wings, creamy breast, a long beak, and white eyebrows. Perhaps 4 or 5 inches long. They beat their wings wildly, making a rushing sound, like "butterrrrrrr".

They were hopping about on the axles, eyeing the bottom of the trailer, but apparently couldn't find any holes up under there. One briefly claimed the area behind the welded V of the trailer pin, but I got up and chased her out of there before she could get a nest started.

She didn't like it much.

I went back to McMurtry's "Sin Killer", but kept an eye on her. Then she flew abruptly in the open door of the trailer, colliding with something. Probably the refrigerator. I wasn't worried. I went on back to reading, sure she could find her way out again.

But no. I kept hearing this "bonk...bonk" as she collided with window after window, working her way around the inside. "Buttrrrr...bonk, bonk." Featherbrain. Finally I got up to check on the situation. Sigh.

My visitor was clinging to the middle of the back window screen, above the couch, her tail feathers splayed out against the surface. She was very alive and alert, tracking my approach. She didn't seem much intimidated. I've never seen such a direct fierce expression on such a tiny fluff-ball.

It was easy enough to read: "Don't even THINK of messin' with me, Bubba. I'll fly straight down your throat and out your ass."

Every few seconds she'd throw herself at the nearest glass surface again, back and forth across the back corner. "Buttrrrr...bonk. Bonk, bonk." This was an interesting situation. I leaned over by her and got down the Audubon Bird Guide, then backed off and leaned against the sink, flipping through the photos.

"Bonk."

She just couldn't figure out glass. She didn't try to get through the screen, though she perched on it, but glass was beyond her.

"Bonk."

Lessee. Not a sparrow, beak's too long. Not a Veery. Not a Thrasher. "Bonk." Maybe some sort of Wren or Thrush. "Bonk." But the colors weren't right, and then there's that eyebrow.

"Buttrrrrrr.....bonk." Wait. There it is, I think. Very close. A Marsh Wren. A male marsh wren.

"Butterrrrrrr........."

What? No bonk? He'd gotten down behind the couch. Not good. I waited, but no sound. Finally I pulled the back forward a bit, and "Buttrrrrrrrr", he blew out around the side, hitting the window there - bonk - again in front of the dinette - bonk, bonk - and then.... then he found the front door and was gone, hesitating not a bit, drilling for the trees.

Peace at last.


Bob

The Grand Unified Field Theory of Camping

Sulphur Springs Camp
Bend, Tx.


It is 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning. I am sitting on the west bank of the Colorado River, about 15 miles above Lake Buchanan. It is 69 degrees with a light wind, which shakes and filters the morning sun through the oak leaves overhead, speckling the ground. Above the river a half dozen Mexican eagles are using that breeze to hover and wheel against the blue. They have a shrill piping cry. Keeee. Kee kee kee. Sort of a high squeal that turns up at the end.

I think that's coming from them. They may be fishing, though I have yet to see them claw up anything out of the water.

My neighbors are having more luck. They are an older couple, moving around below the low bluff, just out of sight. Their quiet talk comes sans sense, just a murmur, with only the tone to tell me they are content with each other and the place they're in. Coffee talk. They were down there with a lantern when I went to bed last night, and there again when I got up this morning. For all I know they sat out all night. Could be.

They are fishing. These things happen.

Absent the occasional passage of a pickup along the gravel road behind me, it is peaceful here. Not exactly quiet. I just got buzz-bombed by a bee, though it is not apparent I am sitting between him and anything he could want. There he goes again. The birds never quit their twittering calls, and the river endlessly adds a low burbling rumble from the rapids off to the right.

I took my coffee and binoculars down there a moment ago. The couple had a stringer of 4 or 5 fish already, flopping in the shallows next to them. I made some joke about how strict this camp must be about pets, since they had to put a leash on those fish before taking them for a swim this morning.

The woman was polite enough to laugh, but seemed to lose all sense of humor as something struck her line. She stood straight up and pulled her rod into a U. "That's a big one....durn, he's gone." She reeled in the line. A fat minnow was still on the end of it, so she cast again. She looked over her shoulder at me, and said "My daddy always said fishing is just one jerk waiting on another jerk." I took that in the best possible way. As a joke. But it was clear they had no time for talk.

Back in my chair. More coffee. Out on a flat rock in front of the rapids a huge turtle is sunning his shell. He must be 18 inches long. With the help of the binocs, across the river I can see a sort of dried mud condo complex of birdnests stuck to the sheer sandstone cliff. Maybe 50 nests, 60 feet or more up on the wall. Like mud-dauber's nests, but much larger entrances.

No one at home, though, that I can see.

Some of the "eagles" are lower now, and they have turned into turkey vultures. Redneck Bustards....er... Buzzards. I don't know if they're fishing, but they do seem to be appraising me.

I guess I better get moving pretty soon. I fully intend to get out on the river with the kayak this morning, but I'm having sort of a philosophical start. Philosophical. That sounds so much better than "lazy".

I feel just like that river down there. It wants to go two ways at once. The surface is all windblown light superficial wavelets dancing upstream. The sound of rapids tells me, though, that down below there must be yet a darker and older desire, pushing south, south, south, relentlessly, to the Dam first, and then around and through and on to the sea. I'm going to try to ride that dark intent for five or six miles, at least to Gorman Falls. And then I'll try to get back against it.

Perhaps a few of you are wondering what all this has to do with the 'Grand Unified Field Theory of Camping'. Well, there's something there, and I'll get round to it later. But first I've got to fry up a couple of eggs, and maybe a half pound of bacon. All this goofing off can be hard work, and requires provender as well as providence. Would you settle for a new theory of toast?


__________________________________________________________



4/14/03

When it comes to planning a camping trip, I'm a regular misanthrope. I don't want to see anybody, and if I do I don't want to hear them. I know it's hard to believe, but other campers generally don't act like they care what I want, and show up there right alongside me.

Sigh.

Over the years I've developed a few Thumb Rules for Misanthropic Camping, that I hope will get me where I want to be. These lead just lately, it turns out, to a Philosophical Breakthrough: The Rule of Rules, The One Great Universal Law, The Mother of All Insights.

Ahem. But I am ahead of myself. First, a little background. It all started when I had to dump my tanks. It is not the first time, I think, that waste management has led to philosophy. I am told that no less a worthy than Martin Luther got his start sitting on a dubious throne in Wurtemburg, cursing his bowels and contemplating Redemption.

Or maybe that's just a canard from the Counter-Reformation....

Anyway. It had been about 14 days since I returned from East Texas, and it was past time, so I headed on out to the Corps of Engineers Campground in Georgetown. As an ulterior motive, I was hoping to run into Kenn and Gail Smith again, but they had moved on.

Kenn had called me up earlier in the week to invite me to a meeting of the Libation Liberation Front. I believe he had some idea he could mix drinks faster than I could consume them, but I gave him a run for his money. I managed to hang in there past supper time, so they took pity on me and brought out some of Kenn's smoked ham and babyback ribs. Excellent. Very nice folks, in a very nice motorhome.

After dumping, I went out on 29 to get some propane, and got to talking to the owner about fishing. Actually, we exhausted my fund of knowledge pretty quickly, so he talked and I listened.

To hear him tell it, he grew up at Lemon's Fishing Camp on the Colorado, above Lake Buchanan, which about 10 years ago became Colorado Bend State Park. I had a park reference in the truck with me, so I looked it up: In the Middle of Nowhere. No hookups. No dump station. Ten miles down a dirt road. Hmmmm. Sounds like a good place to spend the weekend.

Now the 1st Thumb Rule for Misanthropic Campers is this: "Never try to camp out on a Weekend." But hope springs eternal, and this place sounds like a park your normal Yuppie in his Bulgemobile Condo on Wheels wouldn't want any part of. Even on a Friday, maybe, maybe, maybe there wouldn't be anyone there???!!?

So naturally, aging Romantic that I am, I set right out on the Quest, and pulled down the hill into the place just after 6 pm.

"Hello, Sir. Did you have a Reservation?" Uh oh. Bad sign.

"Uh, no, I didn't. Do I need one?"

"Let me see. Well, you're in luck. We have one space left." Nuts. But hey, it was getting dark in an hour. Arrrgh.

"I'll take it. How much?"

"$17"

Actually the place looked pretty empty. Then, just as I got settled, here came the Caravan. A pack of Cub Scouts from College Station. An avalanche of yelling kids, parents putting up multiple tents, looking for lost poles, kids hollering they were hungry, or weren't hungry, and then more cars coming. At least 3 cars in each slot. In the end, I was told there were 56 people in the next 7 sites, at least half of them 8-10 year old boys.

Now when 8 year old boys are having fun, everyone in half a mile knows about it. Likewise when they're not having fun. The normal tone of voice is a scream, disputes are plentiful, and they seem to feed on each other.

"That's not fair!"

"You're OUT!!!"

"You never touched me!"

"Doofus!"

"Daaaaad! Com'ere, you gotta see this. DAAAAAD!"

"20-Mississippi, 21-Mississippi, 22-Mississippi......."

This, and more, went on till 11 pm. Then the grownups started yelling too, and finally everyone got to sleep. At 7 am, it started up again.

I like kids. I really do. But it would have been a lot quieter in my own driveway. Thumb Rule # 1 triumphs again. Never on a Weekend.

I pulled out at 9am, on my way back home. But halfway back up the washboard dirt road, I saw a sign: "Sulphur Springs Camp. Lookers free. 3 miles."

This brings up Thumb Rule #2: "Avoid Commercial Campgrounds."

Economics demands they always stuff too many people into narrow slots, with great views into your neighbor's slideout four feet away. Well, what the hell, I was already here. I broke one rule, maybe I should double up.

This is why I avoid Las Vegas. I like long odds. They just don't like me. But every now and then......

But that's a story for the next post.


________________________________________________________



4/14/03 Sulphur Springs


As I snaked cautiously down into Sulphur Springs Camp, there were already some good signs. The best one was the dearth of Signs.

Running a campground out in the boonies is something that attracts its share of loonies, or People With A Mission. Many is the time I've encountered a lengthy series of emphatic injunctions on the way to these places, complete with cryptic bible references. And then sometimes at the gate there'll be the One Big Sign:

NO
Spittin'
Cussin'
Drinkin'
Speedin'
4 Wheelin'
Pets, or
Foolin' around.

WE ARE WATCHING.
WE WILL PROSECUTE.
THIS MEANS YOU.


Know what I mean? Sometimes the list is crossed out, edited, and annotated, according to the current medications of the owners. It's depressing, after driving so far.

Such signs are not Good Signs.

Coming down into Sulphur Springs, I saw only 3 admonitions: "Welcome", "Slow", and "We don't tow". All sounds reasonable enough.

On top of the bluff, near the store/office, there are 4 furnished cabins. Below that there's the Springs, swimming pool, bath house, and a line of RV sites with water and electricity, right on the bank of the Colorado. 23 sites, only 6 occupied. On a weekend. All Riiiight. Then there's a gravel road that winds along the river for 3 miles. Tenters are directed toward the end of that. Fish cleaning tables, some with sinks, are scattered about.

There's a charming '50s aura about the place. No one seems to be worried about lawsuits. You can sit in the springs if you want. They are rapidly flowing, cold, and mildly sulfurous. They feed the swimming pool, which doesn't have a fence around it. It's 7 feet deep, and an unwatched child could just walk right in.

So why wurntcha watchin? He's your kid. The River is right there, you wanna fence that too?

It's hard to approach some of the sites, as there are overhead limbs and electric lines in the way. No one is bustling about telling you what to do. If you get into trouble, you just get yourself right back out, and what were you thinking, anyway? There's plenty of other places. You just back onto the grass, which is neatly mowed, and doesn't show a lot of wear.

RVs with two people are $20/night, with water and electric. The State Park costs the same, with no amenities. Monthly rate: $250. Between the transient RV sites and the isolated tenters is half a mile or so of semi-permanent yearly rentals at $1250/year. These all have some sort of septic system. They pay their own electric, and most have built up modest shelters and roofed decks around their trailers.

"But we don't allow them in here during Deer Season. That's Our Law."

So forget about October and November. I wonder about floods. These sites are right on the bank, and many would require a good bit of deck demolition to get them outa here. In at least one case you'd need a welder. Still and all, it's a regular little piece of paradise, 10 months out of the year, for the price some pay for cable TV. Two hours from Austin. You could do worse.

There's lots and lots of fishing here, mostly for white bass, or sand bass as they're called. They spawn up here. There's also catfish, carp, stripers, crappie, you name it. I even overheard someone talking about a "Chuckle-headed Catfish", whatever that is. I shudder to think.

The best looking catfish I ever saw was none too suave, so this guy must be one ugly ________ ________. Thank you Arnold.

More later. We're almost there. Can anybody think of any more Thumb Rules for Misanthropic Camping? I can use all the help I can get.


Bob

_________________________________________________________

4/15/03
Back in Georgetown

Saturday was a lazy, quiet day on the river in Sulphur Springs. I read Tony Hillerman's latest mystery, and most of Michael Connelly's. In the afternoon, somebody stopped on the road behind me and brought down the Austin and Dallas papers. "You look like a reader. Want these? I'm through with them. The next nearest paper is in Lampasas."

I thanked him, and caught up a bit on the war. Then I took a walk to the end of the road and back.

Sunday I finally got out in the Kayak. The Colorado is like most rivers here in limestone country: deep pools followed by rapids and shallows, followed by deeper pools. A few bumps and scrapes in 6 inches of water. The wind was against me going down to Gorman Falls. It was about 5 or 6 miles, and took about 30 minutes. On the way down a huge flock of cattle egrets swooped low over my head, coming fast from behind. They were bank to bank, headed downstream like a low white cloud. I was startled, delighted, and frustrated. I carry a disposable camera in the boat, inside a ziplock bag, but it's hard to get out in a hurry.

Then 5 minutes later here they come again, upstream this time. Whoda thought it? I scrambled for the camera, but it was too late. They came back a third time, but high, and not so much of a picture.

I chased a blue heron from perch to perch all the way down the river. Poor thing couldn't fish for worrying about me.

Gorman Falls is more a seep than a falls right now, a wide tangle of ferns and dripping water down a high bluff above the river. It's in the state park, and posted, but some guy was up there with a party, and they invited me up. He was wearing a pistol, and I took him to be a non-uniformed park ranger giving a tour.

The ride back was a real effort, and an extended experiment. No problem in the deep parts, where I could get a bite with the paddle, but in the rapids there was often only one way through, and that where the current was swiftest. Tried a variety of things, like hugging the bank, or paddling fast and shallow, or even poling (gasp) with this $150 graphite paddle. Hate that. There's always the chance you'll break it off in a crack.

"Up a creek without a paddle" has always been just an old saying to me, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Finally I got to a place where nothing worked but to get out and pull. You do what you gotta do, even if it seems against the rules of the game. When I got back, I was bowlegged and sore. Felt a little like riding a horse all day. There's muscles high in your inner thighs you seldom use.

It was a solid hour coming back up, and I probably could have slogged along the bank faster. I was happy to hobble up to the camper and wrap myself around a couple of beers.

Well that's about it. O yeah, the Grand Unified thing. The Lesson of Life. The Epiphany of Pfun. The Way to Contented Camping. The Rule of Rules, which no doubt you've been waiting for. Here it is:

"There are no rules." That's it. Enjoy.


Okay, okay. I can hear you grumbling from here. "That's all? That's the Grand Unified Whatchamacallit?"

You were expecting Yoda, maybe? If I was small, green, and enigmatic, maybe I could do better. Even Kermit has that advantage.

There's other ways to put it: "Rules are made to be broken." "Anything can happen." "Fine days are where you find'em."

Please don't make me turn this into a Country and Western song.

If I'd followed my Trusty Thumb Rules, I'd have gone on home, and lost these 2 days on the river. The wildlife. The peace and quiet. Even the friendly people.

If I'd thought I knew everything, I'd have missed out.

Y'all have a good day, y'hear?


Bob