Palmetto SP: God's First Draft for Heaven?

MONDAY, JULY 25th, 2011
Well this is my fifth trip this summer. I am alone and loving it at Palmetto State Park in Ottine, TX. Ottine is between Gonzales and Luling off of SH 183. More importantly, it is 5.1 miles south of Buc-ees on IH 10. I chose this park for several reasons. First of all, I remembered it having a lot of shaded sites. N2S and I camped in a tent here about six years ago. It was hot. We had a fan, but could have used a popup with a helaciously powerful AC like mine. I also wanted to stay fairly close to home. This place is within eighty miles. And, I wanted a place with some trails, but not killer ones like the ones at Lost Maples.

Anyway, I was packed and ready to go last night, wishing I had just gone ahead and planned on another day. For a while, my dad took my mind of waiting. He hadn't answered his phone all day. A friend went to check on him, and he wasn't there. Fortunately, he was only out to dinner with the only people who's number I don't have. Of course, if he had carried his new Jitterbug phone that I trained him on Saturday, we could of avoided all the stress. What the heck- it passed the durned time.

I tossed and turned all night like a kid waiting for Christmas morning. I couldn't sleep a wink until about 5:00 AM. I wasn't leaving at the crack of dawn anyway. Check in time isn't officially until 2:00 PM. I did call, however, to see if I could show up early when it looked like I was gonna be ready to leave at 9:30 AM. That's when the reminder to call Dad's cancer doctor sounded off on my iPod Touch. I was checking on prescriptions only to learn that his appointment for Thursday, which I was planning to take him to when I got back, was actually today, Monday!

That threw my whole morning off considerably. I arranged for N1S to take him out there, but that meant going two hours earlier for a blood draw. All of the hows, wheres, and whats had to be explained to N1S. Plus I had tons of questions for the doctor that I had to go ahead and print out for N1S to share with her. After all that, I think I actually pulled out of the driveway at about 12:20.

As I was winding my way to the highway, a kid in the back of a pickup started waving exuberantly at me. It was Storm, N2S's friend who has gone camping with me twice this summer. He was on his way to band camp. He sent me a text that said, “Have a great time camping!” He is a nice kid.

Anyway, I had a totally uneventful drive all the way up here. The only thing remotely interesting is that I don't remember any of it except the actual camp sites. The drive into the park was really foreign to me. I almost wonder if they have made some changes to the park. I don't remember even seeing the lake last time.

The lady at headquarters let me choose my own site from her computer screen. I chose number 11 because it looked easiest to back in to. Ya'll know backing ain't my thing! She told me just to call her, if I wanted to switch. I drove past the road I was supposed to turn into because the park map is not to scale. On paper it looked like my turn would be about five miles up the road. It wasn't. It was about a half mile. I ended all the way up to Alternate 90 and had to turn around. That wasn't exactly easy, as there was no shoulder on the road. I ended up turning down 90, going another two or three miles and going through somebody's half-circle driveway. By the time I was finished finding the campsites, I had taken a sixteen-mile roundtrip jaunt in the country.

I found the site and didn't like the direction I was backing in from. There wasn't as much room for pulling forward to straighten out as the map had hinted. I drove around the loop to the parking area and came back going the other direction. It wasn't my best backing job, but I finagled it in. Then I got out of the truck and dealt with the deluge of text messages that were bombarding me during the trip. Somebody had created a text group for some of my friends that is sort of like a virtual party line. I took a moment to figure out how to opt out of the stupid thing. Then I realized my baldspots, freed yesterday with a super-short camper's haircut, were frying. Site number eleven was the only one in the whole danged park with not a tree in sight. I hadn't noticed because I was worrying over backing in without being the entertainment for the other campers.

I called the lady and asked to move to twelve. It looked like it wasn't ever going to see sunlight, it was so shaded. I pulled out of eleven, did a loop around the campsites, and backed in with no trouble at all. Then I got enough done on the popup to get the AC going. I went back out and finished everything else, and when I came back in, it was already feeling cooler. For the first time all summer, I had to turn the AC knob so it wouldn't cool as much. Shade makes all the difference.

I did my usual strip to my skivvies and worked inside getting everything where I wanted it. Then I sat down with a Gatorade and studied the park trails while I ate some instant noodles for lunch. I chose the San Marcos River Trail, because I could catch it right by the camper. It wasn't but about two miles all together, but I took about an hour and a half going down off shoots, stopping to take pictures, and finding a geocache along the way.

When I got back to the camper, it was really cool inside. I sat at the table and processed all the photos I took with my Flip video camera. Before I knew it, it was almost seven, and I was HUNGRY. I decided to go to Buc-ees and grab something since it is only 5.1 miles away. I decided to eat on this trip and diet at home. Seems to make sense after my near death experiences with Lost Maples from dehydration and Bastrop from potassium deficiency from sweating so much. I won't eat there again. The food is WONDERFUL, but there was not a healthy bite in what I got. I'm too ashamed of my bad choices to tell you what I ordered. Suffice it to say, it will take tons of willpower to pass it up tomorrow. That's okay though. I have plans to eat a vegetarian burger at Blake's Diner for dinner tomorrow. (Please, Lord. Don't let me get the chicken fried steak that people drive hundreds of miles for.)

I brought the food back to the camper and felt so guilty after eating it that I took another hour long hike before it got dark. Since then, I've called home, processed more pictures, written some of this, and cracked open a huge bottle of Shiraz. Right now, I need to make a trip to the dumpster and get rid of all the trash I have accumulated. Last thing I need is to wake up with a pack of racoons sitting on my belly eating leftovers!!!!!!!

TUESDAY, JULY 26th, 2011
One of the best things about being alone on this trip is that I get to have total control of my own agenda. I slept until almost 10:00 AM this morning. There was no teenager rocking the trailer and yelling while playing iPod Touch video games. There was no “crack of dawn Jack”. There was no “wanna go outside Nick”. There was only me and the sound obliterating hum of my awesome AC. When I did open my eyes, I lay in my bunk for awhile just basking in the glory of my aloneness.

Breakfast was nice. I had bought some jalapeno sausage kolaches at Buc-ees and put them in the cooler overnight. I'm not a fanatic about things needing to be heated up. Heck, one of my all-time favorite foods is cold pizza- right out of the icebox. Oh, I mean right out of the refrigerator. (That's for you younger people who didn't grow up calling a refrigerator an icebox because your younger than mine parents grew up with refrigerators, NOT iceboxes.) Anyway they were really tasty. Once again, not a good nutritional choice.

Today, I used my Mr. Coffee one cup coffee maker, which I had totally forgotten about. It was my one and only Quibids purchase about a year ago. I got it for something like $1.50. I was hoping to eventually get a camper, so I got it and put it in the garage. It brews a cup of coffee (about a 12 oz. one) in about two minutes. When I tested it back when I bought it, I didn't like how hard it was to clean the grinds out for camping. Today I used instant coffee. It was good. My favorite brand of instant coffee is Nestle's Dolca. I first found it in a grocery store in Monterrey, Mexico about thirty-three years ago. Now with that North American Trade thingy, I can get it, and a lot of my favorite Mexican products, at our local grocers.

After breakfast, I set out to explore more of the park. I went in a totally different direction than I had planned. Instead of taking the Mesquite Flats and Ottine Swamp trails, I crossed the San Marcos River at the low water crossing, passed through the other campsite area, and got on the Oxbow Lake Trail. It meanders around the whole lake and brings you back were you started. It was really nice, except that you can only see the lake about three times during the hike.
I had the GPS going during the hike (in case I got lost and needed to get back to the camper). It indicated that I was close to a geocache. I stopped and picked that one up. As far as I can tell, there are only two active caches here in the park. I might get some others that are close to the park, but I may just pass on that. I still have several trails to explore, and I want to pack up and get out of here no later than 11:00 AM tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, my life in the city needs me!

After my hike, I came back and processed videos. I had taken 47, so that took awhile, since I usually get anywhere from 1- 5 stills off a single clip. I also took time to write this. Now, I am cool. I am totally hydrated and ready to go. I think I am going to drive into Luling and enjoy a late lunch/early dinner at Blake's Diner. (NOTE- God has answered my prayer. Remember earlier when I wrote, “Please, Lord. Don't let me get the chicken fried steak that people drive hundreds of miles for”? Well, I just called to make sure they were still in business, only to be told that they close at 3:00 PM on Tuesday's. I won't be going there after all! I am now using Yelp! to find another place.)

Well I used Yelp! to find another place. The first one I thought about was the City Market Barbecue joint. I had heard of it before, and knew most people really like it. But, when I read some of the reviews, I decided not to go there. Evidently you have to go from place to place in the restaurant buying your items separately without much help from the people who run the place. I wouldn't mind doing that with a group friends, but, believe it or not, I am a little too shy to do something that confusing solo. Instead, I opted for The Coffee Shop. It supposedly has the best burgers in Luling. I don't care much for burgers, but figured they might have other stuff, also.

On the way to dinner, I stopped at the scenic overhang and took some pictures. I remember going there with N2S once, and even going over the edge to look for a geocache. Now, six years later, I looked at it with a rush of terror. I can't believe I let us traipse down there in the brush and boulders. That must have been before the time we saw the world's largest snake at O. P. Schnabel Park. That sucker took about three minutes from start to finish to slither across the danged trail! That was when we stopped doing a lot of caching in the summertime, and opted for virtual caches instead.

NOTE: I just decided to hike up to the bath house and use their restroom facilities. When I opened the camper door, I was surprised to see that it was still fairly light outside. My tinted windows made it dark enough to put the ceiling light on about 7:45. When it looked dark outside the windows, I closed the curtains. That was evidently way before it got dark for real. I just gained about 45 minutes. I thought it was about 9:30 when I went to the restroom, but it was actually only about 8:45.

The Coffee Shop is right down town in Luling near the railroad tracks. In fact, a train went by while I was eating there. It reminded of my days living in Waeldar, Texas. My little apartment was right by the tracks. When a train went by, I couldn't talk on the phone or hear my TV. For the first few weeks, the night trains woke me up. I got used to it though.

I am really glad I went to The Coffee Shop after yesterday's pig out session. They offered a vegetarian Reuben sandwich! It was served on homemade marbled bread, cut about an inch thick. It was very good. I should have passed on the fries, but they were really good, also. The iced tea had a touch of mint in it. When I asked what was in the tea, the server was all apologetic. She had given me the wrong one. I told her I liked it, and got my refills that way, also.

I spent quite a while at The Coffee Shop, because it is the only time on this trip I 've had WiFi. I forgot to check at Buc-ees. I had 17 Fac`ebook notifications that didn't come through to that sorry Blackberry app. I keep forgetting to use the plain old mobile Facebook, which is ten times better. And, NO, I do not want an iPhone right now.

After eating, I headed out of town the opposite of how I came in. There was a geocache popping up on my GPS called Mighty Oak. It was only a mile out of town, and was supposedly on the side of the road. When I got there, I pulled out my iPod Touch and read all the details on the geocaching app before getting out of the truck. Lucky for me, because all the people before me were saying, “Avoid the tree. It is infested with a bee hive!” One of them said, “Trust your coordinates and stay far from the tree.” That's what I did, only I couldn't find a cache. Then I noticed a rolled up piece of paper about an inch wide laying on the ground. To a cacher, that is obviously the log from a micro-cache. I picked it up and sure enough that was it. I noticed the white cap from a pill container laying near it and eventually found the container laying in the grass.

One of the fundamental rules of geocaching is repairing caches for the owner when you can. I usually have all the stuff you would need with me in my geocaching backpack. This trip, I didn't event bring it with me. Instead, I folded a gas station receipt and added it to the log so there would be more room for others and me to sign. Then I took some clothesline I had in the back of my truck and tried to hang it. Unfortunately, that line had been in there all summer long and just fell apart on me. I saw a strip of tire treads from a blowout and actually figured out that I could work a metal wire out of it. I used the wire to hang the cache on a barbed-wire fence behind a telephone pole. I don't know where it was actually supposed to be.

From there, I headed over to Buc-ees and filled up the truck. It was super busy, so I blew off the two caches that are hidden there. I didn't even go inside. I wasn't hungry, but that isn't always necessary there!

Back at the camper, I figured out a route on the trails that would get me on all of the ones I hadn't been on yet. It took me about two hours. One of the trails was cordoned off. The sign said, “This is not a thru-way. The next 2,000 feet of trail are closed.” I thought at first that they were talking to cars, since that stretch was a dirt road. I decided to go on. I figured I could just give that explanation, if anyone disapproved of my being there. There was no reason I could see for it being closed to hikers. There were some spots where they were replacing the crushed granite, but other than that, it was a perfectly good trail.

Since getting back to the camper, I have been sitting here at the dinette processing my photos and writing. I'm kind of tired this evening, so I expect I will go to bed a little early after I kill what's left of that huge bottle of Shiraz! I will definitely read a few chapters of my current book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I also might watch the rest of What's Up Doc? or some other movie on my iPod Touch. I don't know. I don't have to have a plan because I am by myself.

Tomorrow, I hope to wake up early while it is still fairly cool. I won't set an alarm, though. I want to pack up and put the camper down. I'll go ahead and hitch up, but if it is early enough, I'll take a nice long hike around the lake again. Then it's back to the real world, where I 'll mope around the house waiting for next week's trip to the Koyote Ranch in Medina, Texas. That place looks really nice online and should make a great last trip of the summer. Don't count me out though. I plan on going several weekends during the school year. There's absolutely no reason not to.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 27th, 2011
Well, this morning will not go down in my camper history as the best, even though it started out really nicely. I woke up without an alarm at 7:30 AM. I was a little too cold, but hey, that's the price you pay when you have a sensational AC in your camper and forget to turn it down a bit before going to bed. I made myself a cup of coffee and drank it while looking at Facebook on my Blackberry. Then I started packing up everything in the camper. When it was all ready to go, I turned off the AC, took off the door, and went outside to loosen the tent areas and dry off any AC condensation. The AC kept dripping on the rear bunk canvas, so I decided to go ahead and push the bunk in. As I did, I heard a horrific crash from inside the camper. In what will live as one of my most bonehead mistakes of all time, I had forgotten to take the dadgum ice chest off of the counter and set it on the floor. Pushing the bed in had forced it off the counter and sent it crashing to the floor.

Now I have mentioned the problems I was having with mystery flooding on my camper floor before. Remember how I actually took it in to Ancira to get it checked out? Well that problem is solved. I took care of it by draining my tank and putting the plug in the sink after discovering another flood a few days back. I was going to go practice backing the camper at Elrod, but when I jacked up the hitch receiver, water started running out the back of the camper. It had been pooled on the floor since the last trip home, I guess. All of that was caused by not screwing a stupid little plastic plug in the drain. I didn't even know I had one until I was looking in the manual to find how to turn the pump on. It was just sitting in the box. I pulled it out and, sure enough, it screwed right into the drain. I don't know why Ancira never mentioned it.

Back to today. The water on the floor this morning was no mystery! As it crashed to the floor and broke in places, the ice chest emptied the water from 20 pounds of ice all over the floor. It all pooled under the dinette. It was at least two inches deep! I used one of those Sham Wow towels that I bought at the dollar store the other day. It soaked it up, I wrang it out. It soaked it up, I wrang it out. It took about 80 times!

I had to pull everything out of the camper and put it in the truck. Then I used some paper towels to dry it the rest of the way. I was worried about moisture where I can't see it, so I popped the camper back up here at the house to let it air out all day. I really don't think there is any damage. Nothing soaked up into the particle board walls like the other flood.

Since God is so good about answering my prayers and taking good care of me, here's a new one: Lord, please let next week's trip to Koyote Ranch happen without any idiotic blunders on my part. Come to think of it, how about making the whole trip blunder free on everybody's part. (I was going to say, “Let next week go off without a hitch.” Probably not a good wish for someone pulling a trailer!!!) Bye, ya'll!

Camper Trip With the Guys: July 2011

For my fourth trip in my camper, I invited my buddies Jack Funkhouser and Mike Messer to join me. They are into collecting rocks, and Mike said there was a lot of rock collecting potential in the Llano area, so I went on line looking for places to park the camper. I chose the Hi-Line Resort in Tow, Texas, because we would be camping on the lakefront of beautiful Lake Buchanan. Nobody else had made a reservation for any of the seven lakefront spots, so we were given #27, which in a normal season is considered the best. That's because it is right next to the pool and beach area. I say during a normal season, because, due to the drought, the water's edge was a good football field length away from where it is supposed to be.

I remembered right after I sent Jack a text inviting him to come along with Mike and Me that we could not all sit in my truck. It was fine for Jared, Storm and me, but Mike and I are big guys. There was no possible way Jack could sit between us without suffering damages to his internal organs. When I mentioned that to Deb, Jack's awesome wife, she suggested that Jack pull the camper with his full-sized truck. So, that is what we did. He has a back seat in his. The backs of my seats are flush to the rear wall of the truck cabin. There isn't even a little storage space, as in Josh's Ford Ranger.

When Jack and Mike arrived to pick me up, we had to play a game of “move the vehicles”. First I moved my truck out of the driveway so Jack could hitch up and move the camper out of the way so I could pull the Malibu out of the garage. Jared was going to practice driving the Malibu while I was gone. I asked Jack to back my truck into the garage for me (I am not good at reverse.) , then I pulled the Malibu back into the driveway. When Jared starts driving for real, we will have to bite the bullet and store the camper somewhere. It is hard enough to juggle three cars as it is.

I have to say that I was secretly pleased to see that Jack had problems getting my receiver to lock on his hitch. It wasn't my stupidity that caused my issues on the last trip. We sprayed it really well with the silicone spray I bought for it, and that seemed to do the trick. It goes on and off now with no trouble.

Jack pulled out of the driveway and asked Mike and me if we cared what way we went to Llano. We told him he was the driver. He surprised us by taking Highway 16 all the way to Bandera and then passing through Center Point and Comfort. That wasn't even a suggested option when I routed us with both a GPS and Google directions. It was a very nice carefree drive with none of the 1604 and IH 10 craziness. On top of that, the scenery was really nice, even though most of the area is golden brown due to lack of rain.

Before we even got twenty miles down the road, we pulled into the Picosos Peanut store in Helotes. We all bought some peanut snacks for the trip. Mine are still in the camper food box untouched. I'll talk more about that later. The point is, when Jack, Mike, and I travel together, there are no limits. If we want to stop and see something we do. We have a skeleton plan, but do and see anything else that peeks our interest. I love traveling that way. To further prove the point, in Comfort, Jack mentioned that there was a winery he likes that sells really good jalapeno wine. He no sooner said it, then we were in the parking lot. We paid our $3.20 and sampled about six of their wines. We all bought a bottle of the jalapeno wine. It is really good. It was a fun impromptu stop, and a wonderful addition to our adventures of the day.

Another thing I like about traveling with the guys, is the way we seem to do it in some alternate dimension of time. Trips just fly by. Before we knew it, we were pulling in to the Hi-Line Resort. It only felt like we had been on the road for about an hour, not the more than three hours (with stops) it actually took us. We checked in at the office, located our spot, and unhitched and set up the camper. Much to my surprise, there was water on the floor again. Jack figured out that it was because I did not turn the spigot all the way to the closed position. Since I had never used water, I didn't think it was necessary. What I didn't know, was that Ancira RV had filled my tank.

We didn't plan on sitting around the camp site, so we headed back to Llano. We started out at Cooper's BBQ. I love that place. If you want my opinion, it is the best barbecue of any I have eaten in Texas. Sorry, Lockhart. You may have the Texas Barbecue title, but I don't really like any of your places. I love Cooper's. I like that they open up a huge grill before you even go in and let you pick your meat. Menus are fine, but seeing that delicious meat on the grill is better. We all ended up with a little more than we needed. I got a slab of prime rib and still insisted on getting a jalapeno sausage link. Then, inside, I added a tub of potato salad and some beans. When I unwrapped my meat and saw how much the guy gave me, I offered some to the others. Mike said he wouldn't mind a taste of the prime rib, so I cut a good third of it off and threw it on his paper. We all ate too much. I felt bloated and needed to lay down, but I didn't get the opportunity.

Our first stop after eating was Robinson City Park. We go there practically every year for the Crawfish Crawl charity 5K race, but I never had reason to notice the RV campsite. I wanted to get some information about prices and visually assess the place. It looked pretty nice to me. I guarantee that it is a safe place to stay. The Llano Police Department is right there in the old pro-shop of the golf course!

I had my Garmin GPS with us and had preloaded about twenty geocaches around Llano and Lake Buchanan. One of them just happened to be right there at Robinson, so I went ahead and grabbed it while we were there. Jack and Mike were already walking around with their noses to the ground looking for rocks. They were happy. I was happy. All was well with the world.

The rock shop on the square was closed on Monday's, so we went to the Red Top Jail House next, hoping to go in and see it. Unfortunately, it was closed. They are raising money to restore it. I guess I'll get to see it some day. Instead, we parked right across the street at the little public park area that leads down to the river, just below the bridge. Mike and Jack walked around for about an hour or so looking for rocks. I took some pictures, but my stomach was getting kind of queasy so I hiked up to the park and sat in the shade on a concrete bench until they were done. It was nice and breezy up there. I was actually dozing in and out a bit before the guys came back from the hunt.

As soon as we got in back in that hot truck, we decided we needed to go somewhere cool to truly chill out for awhile. We had seen Joe's Bar and Grill on the square, so we went there. It is a nice big place in a really old building. We sat down and had a few ice-cold beers. They had WiFi, so I was able to deal with some of my email with my iPod that I just can't take care of on my Blackberry. I was just happy to sit still for awhile in a cool spot. I still felt a bit queasy, but was still assuming it was from overeating.

We headed back towards the camper. I found another geocache on the way. Then we stopped at the LCRA park to see the ruins of a town that was flooded when they built the lake. Unfortunately, we were at the wrong park, so we just got to walk along the shore line in the hot sun looking at animal tracks. We loaded back up, made one more stop for ice, and were back at the camper. I was starting to have some stomach pains, so I headed off to the restroom. It was a wasted trip, and I was convinced that the cow I had eaten was lodged up in there somewhere causing my discomfort.

Back at the camper, I decided to go ahead and set up my bed before going out to sit with the guys. My sleeping bag was soaked! How I didn't notice that in the morning is a mystery to me. It had been sitting on the floor of the camper since the last trip. I put it out on the railing that went around the lakefront area (In a good season, the lake comes up to the wall. They even have no diving signs on the railing!) along with the two smaller sleeping bags I store in the same giant duffel bag. We still had about an two hours of sunlight left so I said a small prayer and hoped everything would be dry by bedtime. I needn't have worried. With the warm breeze and the blaring unobstructed heat of the sun, all were dry in about an hour.

We took a little walk down to the fishing dock to see what it was like. It really is nice. It is just like an east coast boat house, except that you fish were the boats would be parked. It kind of got Jack interested in fishing. I had decided before we left San Antonio that I was not going to. I had gone to Wal-Mart the night before to check on a license. They wanted $30 for the year or $11 per day. I am too frugal to pay that for an hour of fishing. Besides, the license printer was broken, anyway.


Because the lake was so low, the climb back up the stairs to get to the road that lead to the camper was equivalent to about three flights. I felt really weak climbing up and was exhausted by the top. Fortunately, there was a geocache right there, so I got to stop for a minute. I had trouble keeping up with the guys on the walk back. At that point, I was cursing myself for eating meat. I had been eating a fairly strict vegan diet for several months. The only meat I was eating was the occasional sliver in my Vietnamese noodles. I pressed on until I could drop into my chair and sit in the shade watching the beautiful sunset across the lake. Jack had lots of his home-brew with him. I split a bottle with Mike and barely nursed it down. I didn't really want anything going in me, not even water.

We sat in the warm night breeze for a few hours talking and enjoying the moonlight. The moon was waxing towards a full moon which would happen two nights later. Except for being slightly nauseous and having the occasional stabbing stomach pain, I was really enjoying myself. After all, I was with two of my best friends relaxing by my long yearned for camper by a lake. What's not to enjoy?

We eventually moved inside and went to sleep around 11:30 or so. I of course, lay there reading for about an hour longer before trying to sleep. I slept well enough, even though I woke up at about 3:00 feeling the need to hike up the hill, if you know what I mean. There was no way that was going to happen, so I just rolled over and went back to sleep.

We got up just before 6:30. At least Mike and I did. Jack was already out and about. He always gets up first and sneaks away. Mike always wakes up second and makes such a ruckus moving around wherever we are staying that I end up waking up then, too. He and I grabbed our stuff and hiked up to the bathrooms. It was a waist of time for me. Sure I got to take a nice hot shower which made me feel a little better, but that cow wasn't budging! About once every three minutes or so, I got a sharp stabbing pain that left as soon as it came, so I just went on with life.

The guys wanted to get on the road while it was cool to start their day off hunting for rocks. We stopped in Llano at Chrissy's Homestyle Bakery. Jack got some kind of egg and sausage biscuit, Mike got a jalapeno kolache, and I, against my better judgment, got a turnover with poppy seed and cream cheese filling. We sat outside on the curb by the truck and ate them. I had absolutely no appetite whatsoever. I still felt bloated from the night before. My pastry turned out to be the best I have ever eaten in my life. I even went back into the bakery and told the owner what I thought of it. She told me how they create all of their own recipes from scratch and never sell them until they are perfected. You could tell how much love and care went into it.

Jack thought the Dollar General might have fishing poles for cheap. It was right there by the bakery, so we walked over. I bought a box of Imodium because it said it was good for gas and bloating. When I got in the truck, it said to take two of them immediately after the first loose bowel movement and one after each one from then on. I just threw the box on the seat beside me in disgust. I was stopped up already. It was not the right medicine for me.

I went ahead and took a chance that Martha Long might already be awake. Several of her recent emails to me had been written before six in the morning. Fortunately, she was up. She likes to get up early and do her chores before the heat sets in. I told her we were heading out to the ranch, but would be stopping to hunt for rocks for awhile before heading up to the house.
We got onto the ranch and pulled off onto a little dirt road that Hudson had taken me on before when he took me to see the indian mounds. Jack followed the road a ways back, even though we bottomed out badly once on the way in. I took a GPS mark at the truck and asked them how long they would be. We decided to meet back at the truck in about an hour. I told them to call me if there was a change, grabbed a rattlesnake stick, and headed back towards the fishing tank. I call it a rattlesnake stick because I walk around banging on rocks to let the critters know I am there. It must work. I didn't see any rattlesnakes!

At the tank, I was horrified to see how low the water was. I wondered how long the cows would have water. As I got closer, the water came alive with frogs hopping and fish wriggling in the shallow water. It lured me in like a siren. I wanted a closer look. I walked out closer to the edge on rough patches of thick sun-baked mud. Suddenly, I had gone to far. My left foot started to sink in the mud. I couldn't pull it back up so I threw my right leg behind me hoping for more solid ground. Instead, I ended sinking up to my knees. I was a little panicked. I thought maybe it was like quicksand. Fortunately, Mike got there at about that time. When he was done cackling like a crazy chicken (so much that Jack came to investigate), he gave me his hand and helped me get loose. Unfortunately, my right sneaker didn't come up with me. It stayed way down there. I used Mike's rock thingy (I have no idea what it is called. It looks sort of like a golf club with a claw at the bottom.) to dig and pull it out. By that time, I was so tired all I could do was hobble over to the bank and sit for a minute. Mike enjoyed that as a photo-op.

I managed to get enough mud out of my shoe to put it back on. I hiked back to the truck and used bottles of water and wipes to clean it and my sock enough to be able to wear it. By the time I was finished, the guys were ready to move on anyway. Jack drove us up to the house. I took off my shoes and socks and left them sitting in the sun in the middle of Martha's front yard. Then I went in the house and talked with Martha for awhile in the air conditioning while the guys talked more to Hudson about rocks and where the springs were.

Hudson came in after awhile and said the guys were going to see the springs and would be in in a few minutes. They ended hiking off to the dam, and I enjoyed a quiet time with Martha and Hudson, two of my favorite people. I feel an aside coming. Don't you?

Martha and Hudson Long are the owners of Long Ranch. We say it is in Llano, Texas, but it isn't really. It is way out in the country. To get to their ranch, you have to drive through a couple of other ranches on six miles of unpaved roads through other rancher's property. It is a beautiful, although bumpy, little trip that I have grown to love. There is one point where you curve up to find yourself in a little valley that makes me think of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem. I don't know why it makes me think of that. It just does.

The ranch compound itself, sits right on a spring-fed creek and consists of the Long's current home, some barns and storage buildings, and an old house that they rent out to hunters. That house is the oldest private residence in Llano County. I think. At least that is how I remember it. I stayed in it one night when the Longs were gracious enough to let Joshua's scout den camp at the ranch. It was really hot and a thunderstorm was coming, so we all moved into the house instead of pitching our tents.

My parents first met the Longs when my cousin Tim Baker married their daughter Pam. They drove up to Llano and ended up falling in love with both the ranch and Martha and Hudson. For awhile, it seemed my mother couldn't go an hour without talking about them. Finally, one day, she asked me to come along with them for a visit. As was her usual style back then, she went to the store and bought ton's of food for lunch. She would not go for a visit and stick Martha with feeding them, even though Martha would have loved to. Eventually, they started stopping at Cooper's barbecue and buying way too much meat to carry out with them. Sometimes, they meet the Longs at Cooper's and still bought way too much meat so there would be leftovers for later.

When we got there, I felt like I had seen Martha and Hudson before. Later that day, I learned where. You see, Martha and Hudson are actors. They have been in some commercials, music videos, and feature films. I remembered them from a real estate add that played in San Antonio for years. They were dressed to look like the American Gothic painting. As the seasons changed around them, Hudson repeatedly said, “It'll sell, Martha. It'll sell.” I loved that commercial! Anyway, I could tell you all about the other movies and things, but you can read about that yourself on the Internet Movie Database. Their Hollywood careers are interesting, but that's not why we love them. We love them because they are the nicest people you could ever meet.

When mom passed away unexpectedly in August of 2008, my sister, Patti, and I didn't know what to do. Dad was saying cremation, but Patti had the impression that Mom did not want that. All I had ever heard her say about death was to make sure Dad was buried in the military cemetery at Fort Sam. I called Martha to let her know Mom had passed and she said, “Well, you'll have to bring her home.” Mom had evidently told her many times that she wanted to be cremated and have her ashes spread at the Long Ranch. On December 28, 2008, we all traveled to Long Ranch and said goodbye to her. Patti and I walked around and sprinkled some ashes in all of her favorite places. Then we threw the rest up into the wind and let her go where she wanted. Now, when I go to the Long Ranch, it is like going to see my mother. I can feel her there. She is a part of it. Dad says that's what he wants, too. I know Mom doesn't mind. She always wanted him to have a military funeral, but more than anything, would want him to be happy.

Okay, I could go on about Long Ranch, Hudson, and Martha forever, but it is time to pull in the reigns and get back to my story. So, after awhile, Jack and Mike came up to the house again. They had found a few rocks. They looked worn out from the heat. We all sat and talked for quite awhile, but I could tell that it was time to travel on, and knowing I would be back in a few weeks with Dad, I said my goodbyes, and we headed back to Llano.

We pulled in to Cooper's again. This time, Jack and I both ordered turkey. After Jack ordered, I told the guy to give me half of what he gave Jack. It didn't look like he did, though. I still had way too much. I wasn't hungry at all, but I sat there and ate. When I was finished, I wished I had just skipped lunch entirely. Mike went to the restroom, and I told Jack I was going to go and wait outside for them. The buildings in Llano are air conditioned, but they don't seem to get the humidity out of the air. I felt like I was suffocating.

We went to the rock shop again. There was a closed sign on the door, but the owner was there. She told us she had to leave, but her husband should be back any minute. Just then, he pulled up. We went in and looked at rocks. I said, “Wow! Look at all these rocks right here in the air conditioned store. You can get whatever you want without searching in the sun!” I just don't get the whole rock thing. Anyway, I started to feel a little dizzy, so I went and sat outside on a bench for the next twenty minutes or so.

When I felt a little better, I logged into the LanTex WiFi and tried to put a message on the index page of the Band Booster Website using my iPod Touch and the FTP to Go app. It wouldn't let me log into the server where the site is housed. To tell the truth, it was giving me that motion sickness feeling working on it.

The guys came out of the shop and waited while I worked. I finally gave up and told them I thought the WiFi was better at Joe's Bar and Grill, where we were headed to hide from the heat again anyway. We walked over there (no more than 100 yards) but it wasn't open. A man who was sitting in front grumbled to us that it was late. He had called the owners and left a message telling them it wasn't opened, but all we could do was wait. The sheriff (or a deputy) came and was also surprised that it wasn't opened yet. I asked him whether or not it was against the law to keep a poor old fat man sitting in the hot sun when he needed to be inside in the air conditioning drinking an ice cold beer. He just laughed.

Within five minutes, a car pulled up. A young couple got out and opened up the place. I made my way to the table from the day before and sat down. I logged into their WiFi and managed to get the webpage updated for the boosters. I had to do it in html code, which is not one of my strengths. It was a little wacky looking, but the message was there.

Jack and Mike went to play shuffle board. I just sat where I was enjoying the coolness for awhile. Eventually, I moved to a table closer to them. That was when I started to get a little nervous. The stomach pains were getting worse. I was sweating profusely. My heart was beating over 100 beats per minute. (Call me a hypochondriac, but yes, I timed it with the stopwatch feature of the time app on my iPod touch.) I started thinking about the book Hatchet. You know- the part where the pilot has a heart attack and dies. (Call me a hypochondriac, but yes, I fired up the Safari app and looked up the symptoms of a heart attack on the Internet.) I had the rapid heart rate. I had the cold sweats. I had the stomach pains that felt like indigestion. But, I knew I also had half a cow lodged in my gut. I just didn't think it was a heart attack. If I could just lay down somewhere, I would be fine.

The guys had another beer, and we finally left to head towards the camper. I felt a little better on the ride out to the lake. We even drove an extra three miles to go to a winery on the way back. Fortunately, it was closed. We turned around and stopped for ice. While we waited outside for Mike to finish in the store,

------------ WARNING-- You people who thrive on saying “TMI! TMI!” might as well stop reading now. You know I don't hold anything back!-----------------

Where was I? Oh yeah, I suddenly realized that I needed to pass gas, or more truthfully I realized that passing of gas was immanent. I walked off by myself a ways and jokingly said to Jack, “I probably shouldn't be this close to the gas pumps right now!” At that moment some crazy wild elephant threw its trunk in the air and trumpeted loud enough to wake the dead. I also realized at that point, that the next time I heard that elephant, I needed to be in a seated position two more miles down the road.

We drove up to the Hi-Line Resort, Jack stopped by the restrooms, and I ran in and spent at least 45 minutes as that cow and some of its friends stampeded out of my system. Every time I thought the stampede was over another herd came a running. When I was ready to leave the restroom, I stood for a minute holding on to the sink looking at a pale sickly old man in the mirror. Then I hiked to the camper, shouted “Thank you, Jesus!”, and took that first dose of two tablets immediately following my first loose bowel movement.

Even though I felt kind of wobbly, I walked down to the little fishing store with the guys. Jack was hoping they would have fishing poles to check out or something. The store was closed again, so he went down to the fishing dock to see if he could check one out there. We thought a worker had gone down, but nobody was on the dock. Mike and I stayed at the top. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it back up.

We walked back to the camper hugging the cabins so we were in shade. It was unbearably hot for all of us. Jack decided they were going to go up to the club house and play cards. I opted for a nap in the camper, even though it was really a little too warm in there. The AC just couldn't keep up with the heat that day. I don't know what the temperature was, but it was over 100. Inside the camper, it was about 80. After awhile, I was awakened by the sound of Jack and Mike talking outside. The clubhouse had been locked, so they played a game of war on the back patio. Then they came back and sat in the shade from the camper.

I hiked back up to the restrooms and gave myself a reason to take the next dose of Imodium. By the time I went to bed that night, I had used eight tablets. I slept really good for most of the night, and with the exception of feeling a little weak and shaky, everything seemed on the upswing in the morning. I had no more stomach issues.

I have to tell you about a funny thing that happened during the night, though. I woke up and saw something right by my bunk glowing green. It looked translucent and ghostly, but I couldn't make out what it was without my glasses. I reached out and touched it. It was Jack's foot!!! He was sleeping on the little dinette bed and had to stretch his foot up there. The green operating light on the carbon monoxide detector was causing the eerie glow. I asked him in the morning, if he had felt me grabbing his foot, but he said he hadn't.

I packed up all of my stuff and got it ready for our return to San Antonio. Then I hiked up to the bathrooms to shower. Mike was already there, and Jack had showered the night before. It was about 7:15 when I got back. Our camp site was still in the shadow of the hill behind us. I told Jack I would like to have everything out of the camper and for it to be down and ready to go before the sun got to us. He and Mike were kind enough to haul everything to the truck, including all of my stuff. Then they helped me take down the camper. The two of them hitched it up, and we hopped in the truck and headed for home.

As we entered Fredericksburg, Jack asked if we needed to stop. I told him I could eat, but did not need to. He found a place on a side street where he could parallel park the camper and truck in two joining spaces. Then we hiked over to the Java Ranch Espresso Bar and Cafe. I had a large nonfat latte and a bean and cheese taco. The beans were whole beans out of a can, but it was still good.

The rest of the trip home flew by. We made one pit stop in Center Point along the way. I just stood outside and waited for the guys. I had a bottle of water from the cooler.

When we got to my house, I drove my truck out of the garage while Jack and Mike unloaded all of my stuff, Then Jack backed the Malibu into the garage for me before backing the camper into the driveway. He and Mike unhitched it, we pushed it in place, we put the chucks under the wheels, and I locked up the hitch receiver. We said our goodbyes and they drove off.

All in all, it was a great trip. We did everything we set out to do. The only things that could have made it better are more water in the lake and tanks, no tummy problems, more time with Hudson and Martha, no sinking in the mud, and COOLER WEATHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!