Short Story (no point):
The summer set on Albert. Set too fast. He had so many things to do and it just got away from him. Or at least these were his thoughts, which usually disagreed with reality, but Albert was anything if not contrary to plain facts. He often thought his name had been a source of his lack veracity. Mostly it was his lack of imagination, 30 favorite TV shows, and addiction to twinkies that were the cause. After all, Albert was a name attached to the most brilliant man in the last 200 years, and Albert bore no relation to him in family or character. But Albert was good at accepting defeat, and steadily moving along. And he loved his twinkie runs thanks to his 1982 El Camino he dubbed "charlie". It was one of these such twinkie runs that Albert inadvertantly change his luck, found life exciting, and rewrote the underlying ideas that humans ranked among the least evolved, plant-commanding life forces in the local solar system. Oh, and that we are alone in the said solar system.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
A six year old's birthday
This weekend, instead of a wonderful trip to Sedona, we ventured to the Volcanic mountains of Fort Davis, Texas. We had been promising our 6 year old a trip for her birthday so we took her to stay above a soda fountain, fudge shop in downtown Fort Davis.
We arrived Friday afternoon and based our weekend trip loosely on the recommendations of a friend I worked with, who grew in small town west Texas and is a local Rick Steves. He told me about a picnic area south of Fort Davis, a rock hounding ranch by Alpine, and Foundation Pizza in Marfa. To repay such good information I quickly forgot to get him his promised bag of local coffee.
Friday afternoon, we venture to find the picnic area and discovered it about 5 miles west on the 116 south of F.D. Along the way, our 8 year old noticed a herd of red-haired mountain goats, about 30, along a hill that was then renamed Mountain Goat Mountain. A Fort Davis guide told me the goats are called something like Adous and were intro ducted in the 50's for hunting but have been thriving in the rugged terrain of W. TX. The picnic area was a surprise as it was some of the best bouldering I've done in a while. The girls made it quite a ways up the hill and had a good time jumping between the large boulders. A large coyote was seen guarding her den. The area is a purplish rhyolite porphyry with what looked like labradorite phenocryst. Several aplite dikes were also observed. After several hours of mountain goat behavior we headed to Marfa.
It was night, and cold, probably in the 40's and the town is small. Foundation pizza is located in an old gas and automobile station and serves a thin-crust New York style pizza to a town developing into a art/hippie outpost. It would be 45 minutes, in a town of 5,000, for the pizza and so we walked the town, along railroad tracks, into edgy bookstores that have no excuse for selling kids books next to the crap photography on display, and then back to the pizza place.
After dinner, we went north 9 miles to see the official Marfa lights viewing location. In the cold and rain, apparently on about 1/10 th an inch, we saw...no lights, but it was fun.
Saturday we drove the 25 miles to Alpine, then about 15 miles or so south to Woodward Ranch to rock hunt for labradorite, and agate. The owner is a nice Grandmother with Buddy the sheep dog, and we took the kids along the rugged volcanic field in our minivan in search of the agate. It appears that the agate forms as a secondary reaction of water filling in the amygdules of basalt concentrated with heavy elements. Some samples of the basalt you can see pebbles of agate that look like colorful bubbles popping from the rock. It looked like there were several flows, one was a dark brown, amygdule basalt and another was a rhyolite phenocryst except that the phenocryst were mm-scale laths versus blocky feldspar like at the picnic area. Wonder if anyone has worked out the flows and igneous history of the area. After rock hunting, took a much needed nap and some dinner and then headed for a cold night at the McDonald Observatory for a star party. The girls loved the view of Jupiter, Venus too bright, and talk on the constellations still has them looking up. I liked the view of the nebula in Orion's sword.
Sunday morning, I lost my five year old, traded for a cute 6 year old. Nothing tells of the speed of how time passes as family movies. It is amazing how quickly children grow. So unfair. Their sweet innocence traded too quickly for the sullenness of a teen years. How quickly a "I love you Daddy" fades. Now I have a 6 year old. I have had two previously, and will have 3 more but they are only that way 365 times, then it also passes on. This one is really sweet too. So nothing says, I love you like a force march in the morning. We went 2.5 miles round trip, with small kids that is the equivalent of 3,000 miles in quick sand. But after 12 years of vigorous debated with my sweet wife, she now knows that there are mountains in West Texas, and they are called the Davis Mountains.
We drove home, admiring the charm of west Texas. Out of the mountains we hit the flat section of small, scattered dwellings that attempting farming in arid land. We drove through the small town of Verhalen, Texas. It has three buildings, a two-story brick house that sits next to the "Goat and Guinea Pig Cafe" followed several blocks later by a white, plastered house. We made a great story, how the two families don't like each other over a pump-jack named Charlie, and how it would suck to be the FDA agent sent out to find the lone cafe in Verhalen, Texas to investigate the out break of illness (made up) due to locally grown lettuce (which was because we couldn't tell what they were growing, and wife said lettuce, being a cold weather plant, wouldn't be the first choice of farmers out here). We passed, several miles later, a closed grocery store that I am sure you had to make reservations there to shop. All in all it holds a lot of charm, and with sepia toned sunglasses, the ability to take you back to the 1950's and a simpler world. Happy Birthday sweet heart!
We arrived Friday afternoon and based our weekend trip loosely on the recommendations of a friend I worked with, who grew in small town west Texas and is a local Rick Steves. He told me about a picnic area south of Fort Davis, a rock hounding ranch by Alpine, and Foundation Pizza in Marfa. To repay such good information I quickly forgot to get him his promised bag of local coffee.
Friday afternoon, we venture to find the picnic area and discovered it about 5 miles west on the 116 south of F.D. Along the way, our 8 year old noticed a herd of red-haired mountain goats, about 30, along a hill that was then renamed Mountain Goat Mountain. A Fort Davis guide told me the goats are called something like Adous and were intro ducted in the 50's for hunting but have been thriving in the rugged terrain of W. TX. The picnic area was a surprise as it was some of the best bouldering I've done in a while. The girls made it quite a ways up the hill and had a good time jumping between the large boulders. A large coyote was seen guarding her den. The area is a purplish rhyolite porphyry with what looked like labradorite phenocryst. Several aplite dikes were also observed. After several hours of mountain goat behavior we headed to Marfa.
It was night, and cold, probably in the 40's and the town is small. Foundation pizza is located in an old gas and automobile station and serves a thin-crust New York style pizza to a town developing into a art/hippie outpost. It would be 45 minutes, in a town of 5,000, for the pizza and so we walked the town, along railroad tracks, into edgy bookstores that have no excuse for selling kids books next to the crap photography on display, and then back to the pizza place.
After dinner, we went north 9 miles to see the official Marfa lights viewing location. In the cold and rain, apparently on about 1/10 th an inch, we saw...no lights, but it was fun.
Saturday we drove the 25 miles to Alpine, then about 15 miles or so south to Woodward Ranch to rock hunt for labradorite, and agate. The owner is a nice Grandmother with Buddy the sheep dog, and we took the kids along the rugged volcanic field in our minivan in search of the agate. It appears that the agate forms as a secondary reaction of water filling in the amygdules of basalt concentrated with heavy elements. Some samples of the basalt you can see pebbles of agate that look like colorful bubbles popping from the rock. It looked like there were several flows, one was a dark brown, amygdule basalt and another was a rhyolite phenocryst except that the phenocryst were mm-scale laths versus blocky feldspar like at the picnic area. Wonder if anyone has worked out the flows and igneous history of the area. After rock hunting, took a much needed nap and some dinner and then headed for a cold night at the McDonald Observatory for a star party. The girls loved the view of Jupiter, Venus too bright, and talk on the constellations still has them looking up. I liked the view of the nebula in Orion's sword.
Sunday morning, I lost my five year old, traded for a cute 6 year old. Nothing tells of the speed of how time passes as family movies. It is amazing how quickly children grow. So unfair. Their sweet innocence traded too quickly for the sullenness of a teen years. How quickly a "I love you Daddy" fades. Now I have a 6 year old. I have had two previously, and will have 3 more but they are only that way 365 times, then it also passes on. This one is really sweet too. So nothing says, I love you like a force march in the morning. We went 2.5 miles round trip, with small kids that is the equivalent of 3,000 miles in quick sand. But after 12 years of vigorous debated with my sweet wife, she now knows that there are mountains in West Texas, and they are called the Davis Mountains.
We drove home, admiring the charm of west Texas. Out of the mountains we hit the flat section of small, scattered dwellings that attempting farming in arid land. We drove through the small town of Verhalen, Texas. It has three buildings, a two-story brick house that sits next to the "Goat and Guinea Pig Cafe" followed several blocks later by a white, plastered house. We made a great story, how the two families don't like each other over a pump-jack named Charlie, and how it would suck to be the FDA agent sent out to find the lone cafe in Verhalen, Texas to investigate the out break of illness (made up) due to locally grown lettuce (which was because we couldn't tell what they were growing, and wife said lettuce, being a cold weather plant, wouldn't be the first choice of farmers out here). We passed, several miles later, a closed grocery store that I am sure you had to make reservations there to shop. All in all it holds a lot of charm, and with sepia toned sunglasses, the ability to take you back to the 1950's and a simpler world. Happy Birthday sweet heart!
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