Becker Boy Camping

It came time to start a camping tradition with these TX Becker boys, so we headed out one hot Friday for Huntsville State Park, about an hour north of us.

One of the perks of the trip was while we were still in our air conditioned van, checking out an enormous statue of Sam Houston, which is the way Texas celebrates its heroes.  You can tell that we are almost certainly distant cousins on my mother's father's side because of our brow and the overworking of our corrugator supercilii muscles.

Hunstville has a 67 foot Sam Houston, but the Dallas zoo has a 67 foot giraffe thanks in part to sculptor Bob Cassilly.

We got out and stood by the feet and then hustled back to our cool van Winnie.

Our high spirits continued while we arrived at the state park and drove to our camping site.  We got out of the van and ate our dinner and then hit the trails for a hike.  With our stroller.  At first we took the time to take pictures of pretty red flowers.

But soon I think the hike turned more into a fun ride on the stroller across a bumpy trail of tree roots and some declines to try to get Daddy to run down.

We found some puffballs and lots of ant lion pits, which we investigated.  After we went down the path for a while, we needed to turn around and get back to our campsite before dark.  It was starting to get a little whiny.

What followed gave me the feeling that my Becker boys would be traumatized and ever fearful and reluctant of any similar future adventures.  What started as a little whiny got to outright tears as we piled into the sleeping bag sleeping arrangement and endured the hot and sweaty all-natural Texas night.  We were dressed fairly well in good natural bug repellents, which unfortunately gave me an allergic reaction so that I got a bad case of the itches when it was time for a case of the Zs.  It was a fairly restless night of adjusting, readjusting, waking, and nearly waking.  Finally, when it was too light to go back to sleep, it was over and our morning would begin.

The morning continued the theme of going from whining, to tears, and finally to something like sleep.  We drove across the park and checked out another short trail.  I left the stroller, but soon I was carrying Isaac, and after we turned around I was also carrying Orry.  Luckily he was enough of a sport to walk intermittently, especially when Isaac started nodding off on my shoulders.  Finally we made it back to the car where I decided that maybe the allergic reaction was perhaps somehow some exposure to poison ivy (I've been having some super sensitivity to that delightful herb lately).  Luckily though, it was time to call it a day and we listed the animals we saw or heard before we got out on the open road and headed back to Houston, when Orry and Isaac got some good air conditioned sleep in their car seats.

The list and Orry's delight in listing the animals we saw and heard told me that maybe the delight of the trip wasn't lost in its misery.  And sure enough, the very next night he was wanting to sleep in the sleeping bag again, although the night before I was sure he was crying about being sweaty and just asking to go home.  But the parts I left out were watching the stars and bats emerge from the twilight, listening to the owls.  Checking out an alligator in the morning, listening to an eagle screech.  Watching the clouds move.

Our list of fauna:

owl (Orry said we can count it twice because we saw two.)
bat
deer
squirrel
rabbit
human
cicada
butterfly
ant
ant lion
firefly
blue heron
frog
anole
alligator
crow

heron

egret

ibis

eagle

We didn't count mosquitoes.  And there might have been some water birds we didn't get.  I also saw some non-water birds that aren't included above, and we heard a woodpecker or flicker on a hike.

Also we saw some plants and fungi.

I couldn't help but look up dickcissel when I saw it on a bird list.  And what a treat, because in the sound blip for a dickcissel's call, you can hear in the background a western meadowlark, the type of call which is familar to me but seems seldom caught in internet sound blips.

All in all, the trip was a wonderful sort of miserable, with lots of highlights that will probably endure as long as any memory of misery.  We'll slate another weekend in September and I hope we can get lots of family camping in this fall.