So! Camping. This is our second time at Garner State Park. The state of Texas has a great state park system and The Husband and I have enjoyed many of them. Garner happens to have been our second choice for the location of our wedding - there is a pavilion there with a beautiful outdoor circular dance floor with an inlaid stone design that hovers over the edge of the Frio River. We ended up going with our first choice, outside of Fort Davis on Blue Mountain, and we are glad we did. But I digress.

We left Houston on Monday. How many ways can I describe rain? Drizzle. Splashsplash. WOOOSH go the 18 wheelers at 90mph in a 70mph zone where they should actually be going 50mph because visibility is only about 4 feet. RAINHARDRAIN. I-10 is so much fun in a torrential thunderstorm. Oh, did I tell you it was raining? And we had a tent? And plans to sleep in a tent? In the woods? WITH THE RAIN? Yeah, we were amazed at our brilliance, too.

Past San Antonio. Gee. It is still wet. Wet as in hail. Hard hail. Is all hail hard? In my experience, yes. It seems harder when it is hitting the hood of your husband's shiny car, which he thinks should remain show-room new looking until it dies at 300,000 miles. So there is a little stress in the Honda.

Into Hondo. Damned that's a nice town. Mainly because the people are nice. Just a little rain. BUT STILL, rain. Leaving Hondo, I remark to The Husband that it would be nice to live in a town where the people are so nice. He remarks that Hondo has a large, active Christian influence. I remark back that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I go on to observe that an active Christian community can result in fewer flip offs in traffic (which by the way, there isn't any traffic in Hondo), less murder, rape, and mayhem. Less spitting of chewed gum onto sidewalks. The Husband remarks that in order to fit into such a community one would have to not be a hoyden. He says this implying that I would not fit into such a community. I remind him that I gave up my hoyden days almost two decades ago, about the same time I gave up wearing black suede come-fuck-me pumps and going without underwear. He just looks at me knowingly. I would have kicked him if my knee still worked so I could move my leg that way in a moving car.

Passing through Sabinal, the heavens open and the glorious God's bright sunshine greets us, shining through a Columbia blue sky with friendly white puffy clouds. Yeah, we're camping damned it. And you can't stop us!

We have a camping strategy. We camp in the spring and in the fall. Now, we haven't camped since the accident so I am special happy happy about this trip. In the spring we always plan adventure for the week after spring break and before Easter. Our experience has proven that during this time, state parks are damned near empty. Garner has about 350 sites for tent campers and vehicle campers. It's a big park. It is bordered by the loveliest quite little river, the Frio (yes, it lives up to its name). We trolled the park deciding which site we wanted. We counted about 20 sites in the entire park in use. WE LOVE THAT! We chose Live Oak and damned if we didn't choose the best site in the park. There were three other campers in this area, all grouped way far away from us, all Winnebago people who were traveling together. So basically we had the whole damned place to ourselves.

For three days. Until God came back with the rain. Yeah, you remember the rain, right? AS IN WET? IN A TENT? On Wednesday afternoon the park host came over to check on us.

"How you folks doing?"
"Great!"
"You know the RAIN is gonna come back tonight?"
"No, we aren't listening to anything. Didn't bring a radio or a phone."
"Well they say it's going to be bad starting about midnight and then it will be really bad all night and then tomorrow, well, maybe you folks want to break camp tonight. Seeing as how ya'll are in a tent and all."

HEY. We have driven to Alaska. We have dodged black bears on the road, survived 18 wheelers loaded with fresh trees hurtling down the Cassiar as if the devil was chasing them when in truth they just really wanted a hot cup of coffee, navigated the Maw Of Hell in California, made in rain in Death Valley. You think we're afraid of a little wet? WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' WET. Oh, wait, that doesn't make sense.

Let's just say that I learned something about myself on this trip. I learned that I should be ashamed of all those years I made fun of people who live in mobile homes when tornadoes come. I learned that people who live in Coleman tents when tornadoes come are more better stupider.

Labels: husband, texas, vacation