City Life Has Limits
My return to Austin this spring was not planned. This is how chance disrupts the trajectory of a comfortable agenda. My heart-- placated, resigned, self-assured-- has been rocked with new romance. Really, it is another kind of adventure-- into emotions, hope, and possibility. I mean, what the hell is life for if not for all that? Long held desires within me have no choice but to pay attention. All of my friends, for years, have endured my whining, "Where is the man who will dance with me? Hike with me? Travel with me in the way I want to travel? Age appropriate and having the freedom and flexibility to get up and go into the wild places? Treat me with respect and kindness?"
We dance. It's how we met. And since the middle of January, we have danced at many clubs like the Continental: The Broken Spoke, Mercer Dancehall, Giddy Ups, C-Boys, Little Longhorn, Sagebrush, Maverick's, Central Market...
We dress it up, don our boots, and boot-slide our boogie to local honkytonk bands.
I check the box on my "whining list" for this one!
In the background of Austin life, though, are the city sounds of sirens, traffic, car chases of pick -ups by local and state police, gun shots, trains. My senses get filled to the brim with sounds un-soothing to my nervous system.
I need the wild places to balance things out, and we plan our getaways. His pick-up camper goes on, we pack food and blankets, and dog food for his hound.
Check the box for another item on the list!
We dress it up, don our boots, and boot-slide our boogie to local honkytonk bands.
I check the box on my "whining list" for this one!
In the background of Austin life, though, are the city sounds of sirens, traffic, car chases of pick -ups by local and state police, gun shots, trains. My senses get filled to the brim with sounds un-soothing to my nervous system.
I need the wild places to balance things out, and we plan our getaways. His pick-up camper goes on, we pack food and blankets, and dog food for his hound.
Check the box for another item on the list!
Padre Island National Seashore
And so, bring it on the balance! My new Texas love and I flee the city life for Texas wildlands.
With his new, but used, truck camper, we drive south to Corpus Christi and the National Seashore. The plan? Drive the beach sands for the full sixty miles to see the Gulf of Mexico's sandy solitude! Twenty five miles in, we stop at the dunes' edge to camp for the night, with full expectation of four-wheel driving the remaining miles the following morning. Maybe following the beach route speed limit, or not.
We enjoy the tide lapping along the island's edge, the shorebirds seeking sustenance in the wave's residue, the pelicans flying single file overhead. We rest in beach chairs and listen to the surf. We watch the sun set over the Gulf. Then the sun rise once again.
But, soon, the tidal currents undercut our truck tires. Other vehicles having camped farther past us return quickly during low tide to avoid the probability of their own vehicles sinking into the soupy sand. We try to continue on...maybe 300 yards, and soft sand sucks us down into the dune edge. Four wheel drive offers no miracles. |
"Storm surges farther out into the Gulf are now coming in. The tides are higher than usual and right up to the dune edge," we are told by rangers passing by in dune buggies. They are not allowed to assist. A passerby helps get us out and turned around. We head back towards the beach entrance, only to get stuck again in more soft sand.
Two pick-ups approach from farther down, and once again, because another time, it could be them needing help, stop to pull us out. Kindness of strangers. We follow their tracks over flotsam lining the dune edge. Their tracks guide our way. They made it through, here, over there, up over that dune hump. We slowly traverse their successful path. Until we see them ahead, stopped. One truck is fine, the second has TWO flat tires. By the time we pull up behind them, we have one too: the tire pulled right off the rim.
We help each other. We shovel out the sand, comb the beach for wood pieces to put under jacks. We are a team. They change one tire, and throw the other in the bed of their friends' pick- up to drive into the nearest town and tire store. They will have to come back the fifteen miles later on and hope their truck isn't covered in water and sand. We continue back to the beach's start where it meets the paved road and park close to the dunes. From here, we can escape more easily. We walk the beach, look for shells, watch the sun set and the sun rise again. My sweetheart throws out lines into the waves, hoping for any kind of fish to bite. No one along the shore seems to be catching. It does not matter. We find what wild we can find. We certainly find adventure. We find how we work as a team. And this is what our exploration is all about. Who are we as we intersect ourselves in life? |
Wild and Scenic Rio Grande
Eight hours of driving bring us down to the border, south of Dryden, Texas (maybe population of thirteen—who really knows down here?). Well, six hours from Austin to the start of the dirt road. Two hours to drive the last twenty four miles of wash-boarded and washed-out, rocky, and sometimes sandy, DIRT through the West Texas Chihuahuan desert landscape.
Gates along the road separate tracts of privately owned lands, old ranches having tried to make it work in the desert. Land separated out in two hundred acre lots sold to hunters, or others wanting to get away to fend for themselves. We stop to let ourselves through each one, and drive on. Dotting the traverses of scrub brush and cactus, primitive hunting huts sculpture themselves along the edges of ravines or jut out of the ground in the middle of nowhere recognizable from the rest of the desert floor. Once per year, the hunters come here to bag a deer, or aoudad sheep, or javelina. The balance of that which is hunted and that which hunts is off kilter. The hunter now is needed to even the wildlife odds for survival at all.
Gates along the road separate tracts of privately owned lands, old ranches having tried to make it work in the desert. Land separated out in two hundred acre lots sold to hunters, or others wanting to get away to fend for themselves. We stop to let ourselves through each one, and drive on. Dotting the traverses of scrub brush and cactus, primitive hunting huts sculpture themselves along the edges of ravines or jut out of the ground in the middle of nowhere recognizable from the rest of the desert floor. Once per year, the hunters come here to bag a deer, or aoudad sheep, or javelina. The balance of that which is hunted and that which hunts is off kilter. The hunter now is needed to even the wildlife odds for survival at all.
We arrive at the edge of the canyon where no border wall has been built. Or, maybe, could even be built easily at all without taking over private property farther inland.
Over the edge of limestone ledge, the Wild and Scenic Rio Grande winds through canyons, slices the border between Texas and Mexico. Driving through the desert landscape, one has no idea what awaits at the end of the road.
Blue-green water flows low, at the moment, between banks of lush grasses and trees providing shade and food for local wildlife. White-tailed deer and muledeer. Mountain lions. Javelina. Non-native sheep called aoudads. Roadrunners and rabbits. Vultures soar the thermals, scanning for anything dead.
Over the edge of limestone ledge, the Wild and Scenic Rio Grande winds through canyons, slices the border between Texas and Mexico. Driving through the desert landscape, one has no idea what awaits at the end of the road.
Blue-green water flows low, at the moment, between banks of lush grasses and trees providing shade and food for local wildlife. White-tailed deer and muledeer. Mountain lions. Javelina. Non-native sheep called aoudads. Roadrunners and rabbits. Vultures soar the thermals, scanning for anything dead.
Daily, heavy winds blow through our truck camper near the canyon edge—winds funneling through and over the border crevasses, reminding us that nature has its own agenda here. Be here at your own risk. Ocotillo cactus’ bud towards flowering soon. Prickly pear adorn themselves with fragile yellow blooms. But everywhere one walks, plants are ready to defend themselves against the intruder, and poke and skewer one’s skin. We wear thick gaiters in case we scare a rattlesnake as we explore the ravines cutting the mesa and gravitating toward the river.
Because our couple's fate seems to be how we deal with crisis moments, we are offered yet another opportunity: the truck ignition key left on, and the battery draining a slow death. Twenty four miles out to Dryden. Maybe the possibility of running into border patrol. Limited cell service. But, up on the hill behind where we are camped at a hunting trailer of one of Kelly's friends, weak service is found. The camp about a half mile away provides us with a generator, a battery charger, and spare battery. We walk, gas can in hand towards our destiny. A lovely (?) hike down a thorny ravine towards the river was our goal. But, hey, a hike is a hike, and we hoof it back and forth between camps. We celebrate the sound of a battery sparking, sputtering, and catching. Then the hum of charging once again. Small, but great, victories.
We dance with the wild--within each of us, and in this harsh environment. Armed with pliers, we carefully step our booted feet through prickly plants, trying to avoid the dreaded dog pear (also called clavellina, or dog cactus). Its stems break off when stepped on, or even brushed against. Forget the sandals is the only motto to live by here. A cavalier trek, by sandals, into the brush to pee, could be dangerous, causing one (okay, me) to call for help--and the forgotten pliers. OUCH! With a lump of spines sticking out of the side of my heel, there isn't even any limping back to the camper. Only the painful whimpering of my needy cries for help.
I would have it no other way. This is real life in every moment, living the questions.
Who are we when in the wilds together? Can we work together with grace, tenderness, and respect? The winds blow sand in our faces as we pick the dog cactus off of our boots, pant legs, and the actual dog paws of our companion hound. This is the reality of adventure...one place at a time, one moment at a time.