Hello all! We're back home after a 5 night, 6 day stay in the Davis Mountains. We had a GREAT time together and have many stories to tell! I'll warn you now, this'll be a hefty read, but we think it'll be worth your time. If you care to hear about our trip, that is!
The drive down took us 9 hours. The kids really weren't tolerating the car too well. We got to the State Park at 9 pm. It was very dark so we cruised around looking for a good site. On our way to site 75 we got our first glimpse of the many animals we'd see throughout our stay. We saw a skunk and a gray fox witin the first 3 minutes! We also saw a mule deer and a raccoon. We chose our site and settled in for the night. It was cold and Logan slept with me and Ryan. The truth is, he slept with Ryan. He only wanted Ryan and could only be consoled by Ryan. That turned out to be a week long event! It was a nice break for me, and a nice bonding time for them. Monday was fun, we checked out our favorite places in Ft. Davis. Ryan and I had been there 4 years ago and we were excited to take the kids there for the first time.
Monday night was very cold even with a campfire. We woke up Tuesday morning to 24 degrees, and frost covering everything! And of course, the kids didn't sleep well that night, it being the second night in a new place and they weren't quite as tired as the first night. We drove to the showers and enjoyed the HOT water that was piped in from who knows where.
At this point, we'd discovered the Indian Lodge up the road and have frequented it for breakfast twice. We got hefty servings of amazing pancakes for 3 dollars a plate and warm hot chocolate to thaw out our limbs. We'd taken a few hikes and enjoyed God's stillness and fresh air. We were particularly enjoying the calm and relaxation we were finally allowing to seep into our thoughts.
We were registered through Wednesday at site 75...this is where it gets really good. We were making lunch on Wednesday, getting ready to put the kids down for a nap. A lady, we'll call her Mrs. Carney, in a big mobile home drove past our site, looked carefully at the 5 vacant sites to our right and the one empty site to our left. She got out of her house on wheels, asked us if the one site to our left was taken. We said no. She said, "We've got lots of people coming and we need a lot of parking. Your site has lots of spaces, are they being used?" We reluctantly told her no, and watched her take her red hair back into the bus.
Next thing we knew, she was backing in, her bus was beeping and her 3 kids piled out. "I remember this exact tree from last year!" One red haired pre-teen shouted to her pre-teen sister who was calling her dad on her cell phone to tell him that site number 74 was available. Apparently they've come to site 74 for the last 5 years now and they were just tickled pink that it was available this Thanksgiving too.
Ryan and I looked at each other and knew that our blissful calm was forever fractured here at site 75.
Lucky for us, we had to register again anyway, so we figured we could move down a few sites and their voices may not carry that far...little did we know, the party was about to start. The mom strapped on her gloves, (for real), and started barking orders at her kids. The dad arrived with the Tahoe pulling a trailer with 6 or 7 storage tubs, a cooler and some sort of safe-box. Daisy the dog jumped out of the back. As we packed up to move, we grumbled about naptimes being interrupted and noisy obnoxious people moving in, who clearly had no regard for other people's dream of tranquillity.
We moved all of our stuff, Leah helped us carry everything down to site 72. As we moved our tent, Ryan found a black widow spider under one corner of the tent. Maybe God had a reason for us to move. We got settled in and continued on with our week.
We hiked and walked and explored. We had campfires and cooked good food. We played with the kids and laughed with them. We saw lots and lots of mule deer and even some white tail. We saw a roadrunner, a frog with sucker feet, that grey fox kept coming back and we heard coyotes coming from both ends of camp. They sounded pretty close. We saw about 25 elk and even a desert sheep! Leah calls it, "The sheep thats has horns."
Logan played in the dirt a lot and if he wasn't in the dirt, he was on my back in the backpack. He LOVED being outside and it didn't matter how long he was in that backpack, he was still happy. Leah said a few funny things that we thought we'd share. We were all in the tent at naptime on Thursday. The Carny's were throwing footballs and riding bikes, singing and screaming...our kids couldn't sleep. Leah kept looking out her window watching the chaos 3 sites down. We kept telling her to lay down. She finally did and I said, "Leah, please close your eyes." She said, "I can't see if I close my eyes!" She really wanted to see what all the fuss was about up the road. The next day, Ryan asked her to obey and she said, "Daddy, just relax!" Oh boy. Ryan and I decided that he and I were going to watch very carefully the way we respond to each other. She's so smart! We probably stunted Logan's walking ability by a week or so. After we saw that spider, we kept him in the backpack most of the time, unless we were in the tent.
Thanksgiving brought lots of surprises. We had a yummy supper cooked entirely in foil. I cut up potatoes, carrots, onions and smoked sausage, added season all and butter and we let it roast over the hot coals for about an hour. We had cranberries and oranges too...it was very tasty! While we were cooking, the Carny's had about 15 friends show up. They also ate a smell good meal, not quite as respectfully as we ate ours. We cleaned up and closed up the coolers while the sun was still out, went for a walk and saw about 6 Javolinas wandering the campsite! They must have known it was Thanksgiving and wanted their share of the turkey...(These are wild pigs...notoriously nasty to pets...and parents are warned to keep small children with them at all times.) We kept our distance and then retired to our tent to play and let Logan crawl around. There was a little bit of light out and when Ryan got into the tent, we heard a crash. We looked out the window and there was a javolina digging into our cooler! Ryan got out quickly, I kept the kids in with me and we watched Ryan throw rocks at it...it wouldn't move! It just kept eating our loaf of bread. Ryan cleaned up the mess and as he was taking care of that annoyance, the knocks just kept on coming. We heard a guitar, voices singing and the theme song to Shrek. "And I saw her face...now i'm a believer." Next came La Bamba on the guitar...3 times. And after every lousy rendition of a tune, clapping, cheering and whistling. Apparently the Carny's were having a talent show and they wanted all of us to hear how much fun they were having. They went on a collective bear hunt, recited various drill sargeant chants collectively, and at one point one of them even pulled out a violin. I'm not joking.
Next, it started RAINING!!! Poor Ryan, cleaning up the mess, listining to the Carny's and Company, and he's gettin rained on! By 9 o'clock the festivities were wrapping up and we were able to relax once again.
By Thursday night, we decided that maybe we would take off a day early and leave Friday instead of Saturday. The peace was gone, we were feeling the winds of vacation shifting to irritation, due in large part to our friendly neighbors. So we tried a few more hikes and activities around town, including McDonald Observatory you'll see in the pictures, packed up Friday afternoon, and headed home. We got home at 11 o'clock Friday night.
I'll see how many pictures I can get on this post. We hope you enjoy them and the circus that the Carny's brought to our lives this Thanksgiving. They've certainly made us reconsider going back next year. We're greatful to have gotten away for awhile. Ryan still maintains it's one of the most beautiful places he's ever been or seen. God kept us safe and held us tight as a little family. I'm so greatful for the experiences He's given us. Happy Thanksgiving!
p.s. Ryan and I never really heard the Carny's last name. We just thought Carny was appropriate because of the circus they put on...
