Friday, February 14, 2014 - Valentine’s Day – From the Heights of Big Bend National Park to the Abyss of Del Rio, Texas

We arise, settle our bill at the hotel and head back into the park, stopping at a small store for ice and eggs.  A complete stranger hands me a rose for Valentine’s Day.

Pearl climbs the Chisos Mountains once more.  I drop the boys off for the Lost Mine Trail hike and drive over to the visitor center.  Pearl and I argue.  Pearl claims that she isn’t the size of a small piano truck.  She considers herself dainty, cute and feminine, especially in her hat.  Tiring of the argument, I park.  Sven and I exit via Pearl’s ramp.

Sven and I again motor out to the terminus of the Window Ledge trail.  I sit on the park bench and write, this time with a glass of tea in hand.  Once again, I luxuriate in beauty, listening to birdsong, feeling so calm and content.  Could life be better?

At the appointed time, I return to Pearl. Sven and I enter the car; I transfer to the driver’s seat, pushing the button to retract the ramp.  The passenger door won’t close. Finding some invisible mote of dust, the door springs open repeatedly.  A passerby, another complete stranger, shuts Pearl’s door for me.   My best friend forever Lahoma, seriously ill long ago said, “You expect rudeness from strangers as your illness marks you as obviously physically other.  It’s the kindnesses that make you cry.” As always, she was correct. 

I retrieve the boys from their hike.  They bound into the car telling tales of wonder and enchantment.  They’ve seen piñon pines, oaks, junipers, grasses and old stone CCC works.  Climbing up the trail, they gaze over the rock turrets of Casa Grande and eroded remains of long extinct volcanoes.  They once again see the scary, spiny dormant stick Ocotillos but now knowing their secrets, can approach them fearlessly.  Topping a hill, the boys look into the Chihuahuan Desert.  The boys finally ascend lost mine peak at 7600 feet.  “We climbed all over the rocks, Beaver – seeing the vista below from multiple angles.  We ventured out as far as we dared, not wanting to fall to our deaths below.”

An old local legend tells of Spanish explorers finding silver veins in the peak, enslaving the local Indians to work a mine like a mini-Potosi, I suppose.  The workers revolted, slew the Spaniards and sealed the mine entrance to eliminate the potential of further exploitation.  No trace of any mine remains, aside from the cool story.

Leaving Chisos, we stop and cook our lunch of pork chops and kale, grateful for the roofed picnic tables erected by the park.  Even in February, the desert teaches appreciation of shade.

Following lunch, we reluctantly drive north across the desert floor, exiting the park.  We pass through a seemingly endless dry bowl surrounded by hills rising on the periphery.  At long last, Pearl finds a crack in the bowl leading into the south Texas desert. Heading north on 385, widely spaced scrub and prickly pear await us as we enter yet another bowl.

Turning east onto route 90 we travel through a land of vast dry mesas.  At first we see gigantic cattle ranches.  Gradually the fences disappear as the land becomes too dry for cattle.  Is driving across Texas a rite of passage?  The land begins to roll as the mesas recede into the south.

The miles tick by ever so slowly.  We crawl across the landscape, tired, smelly, hungry and sorely in need of a washing machine.  We can’t count the miles via mile markers, because Texas, the cheapest state in the union, refuses to erect them.

At long last, we arrive at the Ramada Inn in Del Rio, Texas.  I hit the traveler’s wall.  Why is travelling through the center of our country so endless and difficult?  For years, I’ve been greatly offended by the snooty New York term “fly over country,” since of course I’ve always lived in the “fly over country,” but now I get it.  I get it.

Somehow, Del Rio, Texas aside, we expect a decent place for dinner, but find nothing exceeding Yuckdonald’s.  Being pretty spaced out, we decide to eat dinner at the hotel restaurant, despite visions of John Waters’ Holiday Inn hell with a really bad band loudly playing Tony Orlando and Dawn songs.

With some trepidation, we join the line for the hotel restaurant.  We watch the restaurant fill with two hundred amorous Hispanics out for a Valentine’s Day event.  At long last, we’re shown to one of six empty tables.  The restaurant brings to mind the Sons of Norway Lodge in Eagle Grove, Iowa.  The hotel may have imported the same old rickety chairs and tables.  Tonight, the staff covers the tables with white tablecloths for the holiday.  I picture the Iowa Norwegians doing this too for important events – my family reunion not being one of them.

After a good wait, our server greets us.  “Hello,” we respond, “What kind of wine do you offer?” “I don’t know.  I’ll have to ask at the bar.”   She disappears.  Around ten minutes later, she returns with an answer.  “Chardonnay and Zinfandel,” she reports.  Keith orders a Chardonnay for me.  I glare at him.  My stolen, outdated motto is “ABC – anything but Chardonnay.” “Dear Beaver,” begins my ever patient husband, “the wine here is much too cheap to be oaky.  You’ll prefer the cheap Chardonnay to the cheap Zinfandel.”  He’s right.

Tonight, as a special for Valentine’s Day, cue Guy Lombardo or Lawrence Welk to strike up some schmaltzy music, the restaurant offers a five-course meal.  Did we want that?  “Sure,” we respond, doubting the existence of other options.  “Great!” she replies, “Get your first three courses at the salad bar over in the corner.” She leaves.  Keith dutifully trots over to what may be a salad bar, noting it lacks food.  Perhaps it was a salad bar in a previous life.  Another worker tells him to sit down, stating, “Your waitress will bring your food.”

In another ten minutes or so, our waitress again returns to our table.  We share our insights on the salad bar.  “Oh,” she says and confesses that she works in the bar but she didn’t know what kind of wine they sold.  Dutifully, she takes our order for the first three courses and wanders off to the kitchen to get our soup, the first course.  Ten minutes later she returns to tell us that they’re out of cream of broccoli, would I care for the other soup?  “NO,” I heatedly respond, now having a glass of wine in me and still no bloody food, not even a fucking cracker.

She scurries off, returning with our salads sans dressing.  She sees the dressings, then asks another worker which one is Caesar.  “Hell if I know, I work at the front desk.” Bloodroot rescues her, helping her choose a dressing. 

Famished, I pour the dressing on my Caesar salad, discovering not Caesar salad dressing but genuine Sysco Truck sweet and sour dressing.  I’m so hungry I eat the unpalatable mess in front of me anyway.

Here comes course three, some sort of burnt offering that may at one time have been a piece of shrimp.  Even the boys can’t eat this.  I order more wine.

The wine and the main courses finally arrive.  Mine consists of heavily salted beef and vegetables.  “The baked potatoes will be out soon,” we hear, but no longer believe anything this woman says.  Bloodroot eats my beef; I eat the vegetables.

We order our three desserts – two for Bloodroot and one for Keith.  I fight boredom as they eat.  During the dessert course, our baked potatoes arrive complete with some margarine on the side.  We toss the margarine, boxing up the potatoes for breakfast.

NO WONDER WE COOK!!!!!

Musing in the bar after dinner, consuming our free drink tickets, I think about our waitress.  Now working the bar, she looks our way and flees, scuttling away like some small rodent.  As a cripple, I don’t generally, well ok, never, incite fear in people.  Pity and disgust, but not terror.  I ponder, wondering.  How do people this stupid manage to walk around all day and not set themselves on fire?  Where is social Darwinism when you need it?  At long last, with enough alcohol and quasi-food, pity overcomes my anger.