A Texas Stone Henge Induced Vision Quest

Well.... yesterday was epic. It has all the elements needed to induce exhaustion. We finally got out of the house (trailer) and headed out with bright eyes and much excitement to go exploring for a few hours.


Down the road in Hunt a rancher got the wild idea some years back to build a replica of Stone Henge on his ranch. It's about 60% the size of the real deal and it sits smack out in the middle of a flat grassy field. We decided to make this our first stop of the day. I don't know what else to say about it. It was there. We were there. Rudy peed on it and then we left.



After Stone Henge we took off for Lost Maples State Park. This was where things started to get ugly. The road to Lost Maples is as squiggly as they come. Curvy, curvy, curvy. What does this matter? It matters because in our truck curvy equals puke. Dog puke that is. Rudy gets car sick. It happens the same way every time.... we are driving along and I keep looking down at him laying there. He starts to lay in increasingly uncomfortable looking positions, a green aura starts to form around his head and I start to think... "Oh man, he's gonna puke." And then about 2 seconds later.... Blam! Rudy's breakfast is on display all over his dog bed and he is looking up at me with that "I'm sorry! I'm sick!" look on his face. So we pull off to the side of the road and the clean up procedure takes place. This is why you should always take a few extra napkins from Starbucks. You can then use them later to clean up puke.

My attitude at this point is one of anger... toward Texas, for having curvy roads that make us car sick. I remained angry all the way until we reached the park (which seemed to take FOREVER) and I was able to escape the confines of the truck cab. I was feeling creepy too at this point from the curvy roads. I was attacked by bees in the parking lot so I yelled and stomped about and cursed Texas some more. Then we took off for the hike and I managed to be lulled in to submission by the beauty of the river and the trees. Texas.... I forgive you.



Anyone who knows us knows that we are frequent accidental adventurists and that one of these days we will end up featured on that show "I Shouldn't Be Alive." We always end up on epic hikes without proper supplies. Yesterday was a good example. Rudy of course had an empty stomach by the time we got to the park. And we had had a small breakfast several hours earlier. We brought nothing with us except for a small water bottle a piece. It was 75 degrees and dry as a bone outside. So we set out on a 5 mile hike. There was only one moderate climb about half way through... but I don't know about you all... I need a little snack or something to keep wind in the old sails on that long of a hike. Long about three quarters of the way through Billy started cracking jokes that we were on a vision quest and before it was over maybe we would see our spirit animals. I was weak with laughter and hunger.



Rudy was in and out of the creek and was probably feeling a little trippy due to lack of fuel and the Texas sun cooking us... here's a taste of what he was going through...



He looks to me in that photo like the lead role in an Akira Kurosawa film. He is the 8th samurai. He is Yojimbo... or perhaps even Red Beard.

Toward the end of the hike when he was getting really tired there were several installments of "Where's Rudy? Hmmmm.... has anyone seen Rudy? I wonder where he could be?"



He's not very good at hiding.... but we try to let him believe that he has us confused every time.



We made it back to the truck around 5. We were deliriously hungry and drove down the road to Vanderpool to a little road side store. Now... Vanderpool has a population of around twenty people... and this is the one and only store for about thirty miles. It was my only chance at food for almost two hours til we got home. So I snarfed down a Snickers ice cream bar and bought a bag of Cheetos. Then five minutes later I wished I was dead. Rudy got to have two Cheetos and two bites of a peanut butter granola bar. I was afraid to give him anything else that he might puke again and of course I don't feed him crap like Cheetos normally anyway. I would not normally feed Cheetos to my worst enemy. My judgement was impaired by the vision quest.

We took the straight roads home and made it puke free. Today we all laid around like slugs. It was a good and much needed weekend adventure.