The One with the Proposal

Today is a very, very special day.  15 years ago today I proposed to Kristi on the 50 yard line of my senior year Homecoming game, and she (eventually) said yes.  That's the story in a nutshell, but this is the whole story...

I'm not sure when it was that I decided to propose to Kristi.  I think it was late in the summer of 1997.  We had been dating for well over a year, and we were both heading into our last year of college.  I knew that I didn't want to be with anyone else, and so I set about trying to think of a truly legendary way to propose.    One of my friends had just proposed at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and so I also wanted to do something romantic and memorable.  But I was broke, and a trip to a foreign land just wasn't in the cards.  I wanted to be a lot less predictable than that, too.

And then it hit me - I had a golden opportunity that only a very few people ever get.  I was the mascot of the school, and so I had access to a lot of resources that most people don't.  At that time, I was doing skits at halftime of every home football game at mid-field, so I thought that would be the perfect opportunity.  But there was only one problem: I was supposed to be in the Sammy Bearkat suit, and it just wouldn't do to have Sammy propose.  I needed to be the one to do it.  But popping off Sammy's head in front of the entire stadium wasn't an option either.  In fact, it was the very last option.  I wanted to remain Sammy, after all.

So I devised a plan where Sammy and Samantha (Sammy's female counterpart at the time) Bearkat would go out to the 50 yard line and begin a dance skit, but at some point the skit would stop and my proposal would happen.  But I needed someone to be Sammy while I was busy proposing, and it would have to be someone who was good enough to perform as Sammy for an entire quarter and all of halftime while I was out of the suit.  It couldn't be just anyone.  Only another Sammy would do.

Two years earlier at Homecoming, I was fresh on the mascot scene and looking to establish myself and my version of Sammy's character.  That day a former Sammy named Chris Gill came to the game and asked me if he could suit up for a quarter, just for old time's sake.  And I told him no.  This guy was a Sammy LEGEND, and here I was telling him no.  Chris was suspended for three games after he repelled down the Bowers Stadium wall during a game a couple of years earlier.  Chris is big and built and in the army and could've wiped the floor with me and done the whole game unbeknownst to anyone else (until they found my mangled body a few weeks later).  But he was very gracious about it.  And looking back on it later, I felt absolutely horrible about what I had done.  So I figured I owed him.  So I called him up one afternoon after I had dreamed up my proposal and apologized for my immaturity and my stupidity two years before.  And I let him in on my plans and asked him if he would come back and be Sammy for half the game that day.  He graciously accepted my apology and agreed to help me out.  He was the first person to know of my plans.

The second person to know of my plans was a guy in the RTV department named Steve Carmack.  He and I had worked on my last couple of UCA competition videos together.  He videotaped Sammy's appearances as part of a class project and helped me edit the footage down into two minute videos.  He also helped me record the audio for my halftime skits.  I usually planned and recorded the music for my skits about two weeks in advance, but this time I put it off as long as I could.  I think we recorded the skit audio just one day before the skit.  The skit started out as Sammy and Samantha see each other from afar and slowly move toward each other and dance to "Strangers in the Night."  Then there was a record scratch and the music stopped and my voice came on.  I would say on the recording "Wait a minute, Sammy.  There's something I've got to say." And then my voice on tape asked Kristi to marry me.  I remember getting really short of breathe just recording the audio.  And I remember shaking as I stood on the sideline waiting to walk out on my cue. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

I tried to think out all the logistics.  How would I get off the field afterward? When would I get back in the suit? How could I get her and my parents there without tipping her off? How would I get her out on the field to begin with?

I was devious and cunning.  I laid the foundation weeks in advance.  I began dropping little hints here and there that I was really concerned - and later unhappy - with the job Steve had been doing taping Sammy.  In reality, he was doing an amazing job, but I was setting the stage.  Finally, the week before Homecoming, I told Kristi that I had asked Steve not to tape and if she would tape the skit for my Nationals tape.  Being the best ever, she agreed readily, and played right into my trap.  I was specific - I wanted her on the field about a quarter of the way out on the 50 yard line so that she could make sure to get all the action.  Using the zoom on the camera would cause too much shake, so I needed her close.  I even cleared that with the appropriate people at the stadium (and let them in on my plans.)  They were very gracious and accommodating.

Luckily, it was the last Homecoming for both of us, so asking our families to be in attendance wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Kristi's mom and dad and brothers were there, as well as my mom and stepfather, Luke, and my dad and stepmother, Mary.  My sisters and my brother were both there, as well. I was, however, devastated, when I found out that morning when I got a call from my grandfather, who's health would prohibit him from making it.  He had called to wish me well, and I let him in on my plan.  He was very happy for us and supportive. That really helped me make it through that day.

I knew that I would need to get off the field quickly, and I didn't just want to walk off.  That's a bit boring.  I considered hiring a limo to pick us up and drive us out of the stadium, but I did mention that I was a poor college kid, right?  So instead I added a pre-game skit that incorporated a Gator 4x4 vehicle that the trainers use to cart players off the field when necessary.  At the time, there was a very popular Volkswagon commercial that had been parodied quite a bit, and I thought that would be a great way to get my getaway vehicle onto the field in an inconspicuous manner.  I asked my pal, Mark Barry (who ended up succeeding me as Sammy) to drive the Gator both for the pre-game skit and for the getaway.

Cris Gill drove in early that day and met me at the stadium so I could show him how to walk and move as my version of Sammy.  He proved why he's a Sammy legend.  He picked up my walk and mannerisms in less than a half hour and we went over the plan for the switch.  At the beginning of the second quarter, he would meet me in the "Kat Kave" where I changed and he would perform the second quarter and halftime while I went home and showered.  We went over the skit several times, not because he needed to, but because going over the plans in and the skit were helping to calm me down a little.

Later, when the game started everything went according to plan.  Our families were there.  The pre-game skit went well.  Kristi was walking around taping me for Nationals.  Perfect.  Then the second quarter came and time for the switch.  Chris got into the Sammy suit and ran out to perform and I left to shower.  Unbeknownst to me, Kristi had seen Sammy come out and went down and followed him for awhile and even asked him some questions about where she was supposed to be at halftime.  Chris played the whole thing perfectly and Kristi never had a clue that it wasn't me in the suit.  I told you Chris is a legend, right?

Finally - the big moment.  Kristi is out on the field, her back to the stands and laser focused on her task. I had returned to the stadium and had snuck down to the sideline, where I waited for my cue. Finally - my cue came and I walked out onto the field, walked around Kristi between Sammy and her and dropped to my knee.  I opened a ring box just as my proposal came over the loudspeaker.  It took her several seconds before she realized what was going on and that I was kneeling in front of her and not in the Sammy suit.  She lowered the camera, put her hand over her mouth and began crying.  The crowd roared.  I later found out that Tim, her father, had wandered over to the end zone under the scoreboard and was talking to someone.  Whoever was talking to stopped and said, "hey, check that out, somebody's getting engaged."  "Yeah," he said with a laugh, "that's my daughter!"

Our boss, Linda Gorski, ran out from the sideline and grabbed the video camera just as the Gator cart pulled up to drive us away. Kristi was crying, and I was still waiting for an answer. We got in the Gator and made a victory lap around the track of the stadium.  The whole time I was asking, "well?" Kristi was still crying and I was starting to feel pretty stupid.

Finally, as we rounded the stadium and neared the Kave, I asked her again, "will you marry me?" and she nodded (still crying) and sobbed, "yes."

Whew.

Everything else is pretty much a blur after that.  About the only thing I remember is that I had forgotten to bring my usual shorts and T-shirt back with me and had to perform the last quarter and a half in my underwear and how scratchy that was.

So that, kids, is the story of how Kristi and I got engaged 15 years ago today. And given the opportunity, I would do it all over again.




I love you, Girl.  Happy engagment anniversary!

Error 99ed

The day after the Dallmeyer shoot, my Canon 40D started giving me an "error 99" code when I tried to shoot with it.  On Canon cameras and error 99 is a catch-all error that could mean anything from a bad battery connection to a bad connection with a lens to a loose ribbon cable on the internal circuit board.  I've gotten error 99s at work before, so I started going through all the procedures that usually fix them.

Nothing.

The very first shot that I took with my Canon 40D in December 2009

Then I tried them again, doing a more thorough job.  I cleaned connections and replaced batteries and tested with someone else's battery and reformatted my memory cards and reloaded the firmware.

Nothing.

So I took it to my favorite camera shop, Precision Photo and Video, in Austin.  The tech said that with that kind of an error they usually have to send them off to Canon to have them work on them.  That, along with shipping and any parts and labor usually costs around $400.  Heck, I could've bought a USED 40D that very day for $450.  But I figured that if I was going to spend that much money, I might as well put it towards a brand new camera instead.  So my old trusty 40D went where all good broken cameras go - eBay.

The very last shot that I took with my Canon 40D in March 2012

I was actually surprised how much I got for my non-working (except in Live View) old camera - $270!!!  So between that, some birthday money (thanks, Dad, Janet and Grandma Hagler!) and some freelance money I was able to get a brand new Canon 60D.

I'm going to miss that great old 40D.  We had been through a lot together and I used it to learn quite a bit about photography.  But frankly, after using the 60D at work for awhile I was starting to get frustrated with its limitations.  It was starting to feel its age.  So its demise ended up being a good thing.  An unexpected thing that wasn't budgeted for, but a good thing in the long run.

About 40 days passed between when the 40D died and when I got the 60D - a period of time the length of lent and just about as trying.  It was really weird to not have a camera other than the iPhone to be able to grab when the kids were doing something amazing.  My hand felt empty at family functions and pretty much all spring.  But the time in the wilderness has passed, thankfully.  And I'm grateful that getting a new camera was even an option (and especially grateful to have such an understanding wife who knew that it was a need.)

On to a new exciting chapter in my photographic (and video) journey... with my new 60D in hand!  I can't wait to see what I can do with it and to share those images with you!

Grasping at Adequacy

I find myself feeling inadequate and a bit hack-ish this morning.

Yesterday, I got the opportunity to work alongside and watch a truly gifted photographic artist, Lauren Larsen.  Seriously- there are photographers, and then there are artists.  The difference is vision and style and grace and poise. She's got all that, and a patient spirit.  And it was a huge honor to get to work with her.

That said, I hadn't actually planned on working with her.  I've been a fan of her work for a couple of years now ever since my buddy, Matt, turned me on to her website (they knew each other in college.)  I've been working toward doing more professional photography, and so I've also been looking at a lot more photography related websites and videos.  But I know that I learn best by doing, not by reading a manual or a tutorial.  So I've been trying to get as much shutter time in as possible lately (until my camera died on me- a story for another time...)  So a few weeks ago, I heeded the advice that a mentor gave me a long time ago: "the way to learn is to watch people who are at the top of their craft and whose work you admire and respect."  I contacted Lauren by e-mail - cold and out of nowhere - to ask her if she would allow me to be her assistant on a shoot sometime.

This is the bride whose wedding Lauren Larsen
allowed me to help her shoot and an example of
Lauren's amazing work.

laurenlarsenblog.com

To my surprise, she graciously agreed.  When I offered, I really meant that I wanted to carry her gear or get her coffee or whatever just so I could watch her work.  I wanted to see her process and how she did things - everyone has their own way of doing things.  Lauren sent me a list of dates of upcoming shoots.  Unfortunately, the only date that I had available was yesterday ... Sunday ... Mother's Day (DUHN DUHN DUUUUUUHN!)  I was hesitant to ask Kristi to cut in on her Mother's Day, but when I told her about the dates, she actually suggested that I pick that date.  More proof, folks, that I'm married to the best woman ever.  She knew what a great opportunity this would be for me and how excited I was.

So Saturday, the day before the shoot, I got an e-mail from Lauren.  I had sent her a list of questions, one of which was, "what should I bring with me?"  She told me to bring my gear and sent a shot list that included me shooting some detail shots and side shots.  I think I wet myself thrice.  I would be shooting a wedding with Lauren Larsen, not just watching?  Hooooly crap.

I should back up and say at this point that I've only assisted in shooting a wedding once before.  It was several years ago, and I didn't know squat about photography.  Not really, anyway.  I think I might've had the camera on a fully automatic mode the whole time.  I'm not proud of that.  At the end of the night, I handed over the camera and never saw the images, but it's probably for the best.  I probably don't want to see those images.  I shudder just thinking about how bad they probably were.  Ugh.

laurenlarsenblog.com

So I showed up on Sunday for the shoot and met Lauren and her assistant, Christine- her real assistant- the person who was doing what I thought I was going to be doing.  Awkward.  We spoke briefly about the upcoming day and then got to shooting at the bride's house.  I'm pretty sure I just followed Lauren and Christine around for the first 20 minutes or so before I even took the first photo.  While Lauren shot photos of the wedding dress in the bride's back yard, I realized I wasn't actually, you know, doing anything.  So the first shot I got was of the family dog.  Pretty appropriate, I'd say.

Things got better as I felt a little more comfortable.  Watching Lauren work was simply amazing- she just made everything look so... effortless.  I tried to shoot what Lauren directed me to and not to duplicate her shots.  But sometimes I found myself going after her to try to frame up a shot that she had just gotten, just so I could try to see through my camera what she had just captured.  I didn't shoot any of those- I just wanted to try to see with her eye while we were still in the moment.

Throughout the day, I found myself struggling just to get the shots I was seeing.  I love to capture glimpses of people's real personality- most people only show it in short bursts, anyway.  And for some reason, I was having a really tough time.  I always seemed to be just a split second late for a lot of great shots.  That's not to say that I didn't get some great shots (okay, what I think, for me, are some great shots...)  I just wasn't getting them as quickly and as consistently as I'd hoped.  But then, that's why photographers often shoot thousands of photos at a wedding or other event.  But that's another thing that impressed me about Lauren- she was very meticulous and measured and deliberate in what she chose to shoot.  I, on the other hand, was panicking and shooting anything that looked like it might be meaningful or relevant.  The candles on the windowsill?  Shot it. The Bridal Suite door sign?  Shot it.  Some iron work sculpture that was holding presents?  Shot it.  Lauren was like a photographic Seal Team Six to my Barney Fife.  Watching her work, I felt wholly inadequate.  But that's what I was there for- to watch her work.  If I could already do anything remotely close to what she does - as well as she does it - well, I'd be shooting all over the world, too.

More ridiculously - and frustratingly, impossibly beautiful portraiture by
Lauren Larsen.

laurenlarsenblog.com

Later in the evening she mentioned to me that it takes a lot of weddings under your belt before you really get a good feel for the pace and what to shoot.  That verbal pat on the head made me feel a little less a retarded monkey with a camera.  A little.

Lauren was very patient with me, and for that I'm thankful.  I think she could sense my nervousness.  I just hope that I was able to get some shots that reflect what a special day it was for the couple getting married.  I have no idea if she'll even let any of my images out of quarantine from her hard drive.  I'm not even sure if she'll let them on there in the first place for fear of infecting the beautiful images sharing surrounding bits and bytes.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity I received yesterday and that God has given me the drive to try to pursue these new creative ventures, even if the talent is still in the mail somewhere.  Hopefully, it'll get there someday and I will be able to tackle a wedding or a portrait shoot without doubting my ability and secretly fearing that everyone will think that I'm a hack.  Someday.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

I hope that I get to work with - or for - Lauren again at some point in the future.  I truly enjoyed my day and went home absolutely exhausted.  I went to sleep last night thankful just for the opportunity to work alongside such an amazing artist.  Thank you, Lauren, for allowing me to share in the day.  And thank you, especially, to Kristi for being so understanding about my quest to grow as an artist as to give up half of Mother's Day to allow me to try.

Hobbled and Grateful

Back in late August, while hiking at Big Bend National Park, I injured my knee.   With Ibuprophen and some ice, it got better for awhile (or at least stopped hurting), and then I re-injured it (or just finally really injured it) again over Christmas when I came down really hard and weird off of a stool.  So for the past month, I've been limping around.

One x-ray, two doctors visits, one broken MRI machine and two MRIs later, it appeared that I had a torn meniscus in my knee.

What? I didn't tell you about the broken MRI machine?  Oh, yeah. That happened during a crazy busy time at work when I didn't have time to blog.  Yeah, I went in for an MRI on my knee and the machine broke while I was in it - in mid-MRI.  You see, they spend so much time asking you if you have any metal jewelry on or any piercings or metal plates or anything that they completely forget to ask you if you are, in fact, the Man of Steel.  Which I am, of course (but let's just keep that little secret between you and me, okay, internet?)

I finally got a good MRI  and went to see the doctor - Dr. William Whiteley in College Station at the Med, if you happen to be looking for a really good Orthpaedist.) That was on a Friday.  He operated yesterday - on Monday.

This was my first operation, ever.  How, being a mascot and, well, me I don't know. But it was.  So I was a little anxious about it , even though Dr. Whiteley said it was a routine operation.  I couldn't help thinking that 100 years ago, a little thing like what I had might have cause me to limp the rest of my life or - worst case - to lose the bottom half of my leg altogether.  Now is one of those times that I'm incredibly grateful to be living in the technological and medical age that we do.

I didn't sleep well the night before.  But luckily I have this amazing Girl that I'm married to who can make me laugh and calm my fears.  Somehow, she always knows just what to say, and she's really good at taking care of me.

As I was laying on the hospital bed yesterday waiting for her to be able to come back before the operation I was really nervous, and so I gave the nurses some playful hell by joking around.  That's just how I deal with things.  Then Kristi (finally) got to come back and be with me and she and I joked so much that the nurses kept peeking in on us and mentioned a couple of times that "they heard us giggling."

What was so funny was this situation that Kristi had concocted where she thought it would be really funny if the doctor came in covered in blood like a butcher and holding a dripping hacksaw and asked, "okay, now what are we doing today?"  I thought it would be funny if he came in and asked, "okay, now which arm is it?"  It was only slightly less funny when he came in later and asked which leg we were operating on.  But apparently, that's a standard question that they ask, just in case.  he even marked the correct leg with a marker to make sure.

Then it was time for surgery.  I was wheeled back to the OR and the last thing I remember was commenting on how many USB ports a DVD burner in the room had on the front of it.  Four, and a Firewire port and what looked like component cable outlets, as well.  I have computers with less I/O slots.

And then I woke up.  I was groggy at first.  I remember asking for my iPhone so I could listen to music and I remember a pressure surrounding my knee.  Much to my relief, it was the correct knee.

I came around quickly, but my throat was very dry and my voice was froggy from the oxygen during the operation.  The nurses all claimed that the anesthesia would take my appetite, at least and make me nauseated at worst.  But I showed them!  I was powerful hungry after missing breakfast, so Kristi and I went to Genghis Grill (one of my new all-time favorite restaurants) for lunch.  And I ate the whole bowl and a spring roll.  Take that, Nurse Rachel!

You should've seen me trying to get around.  I didn't get any crutches, so I first tried walking gingerly, but my knee started popping, so I stopped that pretty quickly.  I found that if I just hopped on my left leg and swung my arms as if I was running, that I could do pretty well.

After lunch, Kristi brought me home and I got a rare opportunity to lay on the couch and watch TV for an entire afternoon.  She even stopped and got me some ice cream (Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla) to sooth my sore throat on the way home.  Kayci came home from school not long after we did and we watched a couple of episodes of The History Channel's Modern Marvels.  I love that kid.

And through it all, my Girl took great care of me and made me very comfortable.  She was so attentive, I kinda felt guilty.  I'm so grateful for her and for everything she does for me - and for us.  I couldn't make it without her.  And I wouldn't want to.

Thank you, Girl.  :)

Pat Curtis 1929-2011

My earliest memory of my Grandma is of her putting a towel down on the seat of her car (a Mustang, if I remember correctly) because my bare legs were burning on the hot vinyl seats.  It was the '70s, shorts were short, socks were long and everything seemed to be made out of vinyl.

I remember her getting me Cheerios down from the cabinet at her house because she didn't want me eating the dog biscuits that I could reach, so she helped me get something more appropriate (and just as tasty). I've got a lot of other snippets of memories from around the time I was three - about the age that Noble is now - of playing in her back yard with my cousins.  And family Christmas at her house.  And playing her piano - the same piano Kayci now practices her piano on.  And sitting at her table eating.  I remember playing at her house with soap operas on - Days of Our Lives - and of "helping" her in the back yard, which usually consisted of her giving me various errands and tasks to do ("there are some sticks on the ground over there.  Can you bring me all the sticks?") to keep me busy while she tried to get some work done.

But I have two memories of her that are my favorite.  The first is of driving down South Main where it intersects South Post Oak. There used to be a K-Mart there on that corner, and I remember passing by it many times with my Grandma (and of getting some portraits made there, too).  I have no idea where we had been, but we were on our way back to her house.  I was sitting in the front seat (remember - it was the '70s) and I remember her making up a song about my name.  And I remember her teaching me "The Ants Go Marching" - the same song Noble loves to sing with me today on our way to drop him off at school (and sung, naturally, in the same dramatic staccato as Grandma did).  And I remember her singing me a very silly song by Carmen Miranda called Cuanto Le Gusta.

And then there was the day I decided I wanted to go see Grandma, so I walked a block and a half to her house.  Unsupervised.  Unannounced.  We lived around the corner from her when I was three, and I distinctly remember walking down the sidewalk of my street, carefully looking both ways for cars (as I had apparently just been taught) and knocking on her door.  I remember her surprise when she opened the door and saw me.  I remember her calling my frantic mother and telling her that I was there and that I was alright.  And I remember her making me lunch.  Nobody ever made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich better.

I spent a lot of time with my grandma, and I loved every minute of it.  She really seemed to understand me when no one else did.  She understood that kids have a tendency to write on walls, so she gave my cousins and I a special place in her house  - the closet in "the childrens' room" - where we could write on the walls all we wanted.  My first knowledge of science was at Grandma's house when she explained how a potato would grow roots in a vase on her windowsill. She answered all of my questions, and I'm sure there were a lot.  I marveled at her paintings and loved it when she would read stories to me.  I loved hearing about all the wonderful adventures she had had (she lived a really interesting life).  She was adopted, and so I think she had a little bit of a different taste for life.  Everything seemed like an adventure.  And I think I got my love of adventure and mystery from her.

When I think about my Grandma, I think about sun brewed tea (lemon and mint), Avon and costume jewelry.  I think about drinking from the hose in her back yard.  And I remember her patiently reading every one of my Bill cartoons, no matter how dumb the jokes were.  I remember taking trips with her and Granddaddy to all kinds of interesting places - Teague, Richmond, West Columbia and all sorts of cemeteries all over the state (we used to love to see what the oldest grave we could find was).  I remember how beautiful and park-like her yard always was.  The day my sister was born in 1981, I recall a sunny May day picking dandelions in her back yard.  I remember the mint plants in her yard and her making mint jelly (which she vowed she would never do again).  And I think Grandma gave me the nickname, "Destructo."

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to have Grandma over to the house for a weekend and just sit and talk.  We talked about all sorts of things, but we really talked about family.  I grew up enjoying countless hours of sitting in her chair looking at old family photo albums.  I knew that she was adopted and that she was the keeper of our family knowledge, so it was important to me to sit down and get as much of that out of her as I could.  She brought the family Bibles with her and we talked for hours and hours about as much as we know about the history of our family.  I recorded those talks, and I'm looking forward to sharing them with my aunts and cousins soon.  It was a weekend I'll never forget, and one for which I will always be grateful.

The past three months, Grandma has been in the hospital almost non-stop.  She was finally in a rehab facility getting strong enough to go live my Aunt Peggy.  She was supposed to go home Monday.

I was supposed to have dinner with Grandma and my mom today.

Next week we were supposed to have our first family Thanksgiving in over 20 years.  We still will.

But Grandma died yesterday evening.  The last time I talked to her - last weekend - she sounded great.  She was feisty as every and looking forward to getting out.  In fact, she was trying her best to convince the doctors that she was strong enough to go home early, but she was frustrated because they weren't buying it.

She told me a couple of weeks ago while she was laying in her hospital bed that she was just tired.  She knew that she was still here for a reason, but she didn't know what that reason was.  It turns out that she was here just long enough to see her family come together again in way that hasn't happened in more than a decade.  Everyone is speaking to each other again and we all have new perspective.  Tempers have calmed somewhat and bygones are in the process of being what they are.

I wish that she could have been with us forever.  I wish that she could have watched Kayci and Noble  and Shannon's daughter, Avery, grow up.  I wish that Grandma would've gotten to see Kayci's first piano recital (and to tell her again the story of her first recital when she had to be escorted off the stage). I wish that she had gotten to see Noble grow into the mini version of me that she loved and understood.  I think they would've been great friends.  But they got to meet her, at least, even if they didn't get to know her.  They'll have a memory of her.  And for that I'm grateful.  I'm thankful for her life and for the intangible lessons that she has taught us all.

I'm going to miss her spirit and getting all sorts of crazy e-mail chain letters and hoaxes from her. I'm going to miss her cards.  I'll miss her asking about what the kids are doing.  I'll miss her stories.  I'll miss her breathlessly referring to me when I was a little monster.

Thanks, Grandma.  Say hi to Grandaddy for me, okay?

Valerie McCullough Senior Portraits

Yesterday I got the opportunity to shoot my first-ever Senior portraits for a friend of mine at work.

One day a few months ago, Valerie - one of the girls who works in the mail room part time - sidled into my cube and said she really like the photos I take at work and wondered if I take Senior portraits.  I thought she was joking, so I said something about taking photos of geriatrics and laughed off the request.  She insisted that she was serious and I told her that I'd never shot any before, but that I'd be willing to try.

So over the past couple of months, she periodically stopped by my desk to remind me about her portraits.  I still wasn't sure if she was completely serious, so I kept putting it off "until it wasn't so hot outside."

But then about a month ago, she stopped by with an earnestness that told me that she was, indeed, serious.  So we set a date for the shoot and talked about what she had in mind and what she was into.  I really wanted her portraits to reflect her personality.

Turns out Valerie is a transplant from Oklahoma, and a self-described "country girl."  So I envisioned something with sweeping rural landscapes and tall waving grass.  One problem: Texas is in the middle of the worst drought in its history, so all the grass is dead, and it has been all summer.  Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was secretly panicking.  The Texas landscape is just downright ugly right now.  And then a couple of cool fronts came the second week of October, and with it some much needed rain.  And it turns out that the rain we got was just enough to make some grass grow in some places.

Saturday, my family and I headed out for a picnic/location scouting drive to see where the best grassy landscapes were.  Luckily, we found some great locations all in the same place.

The day of the shoot, I called my buddy Matt and asked if he'd like to go along and help me out with the shoot.  This being my first portrait shoot, I was a bit nervous that I'd screw things up and end up with no good shots.  I would have made myself look silly and have wasted poor Valerie's time.  Matt is an exceptional photographer in his own right, so I knew that with him there that if need be - that is, if I completely sucked up the joint - that he could just beat me over the head with a telephoto lens and finish the shoot himself.

The shoot started rather oddly with me trying to awkwardly explain what I wanted Valerie to do - "okay, stand on the back of my truck in front of this sign."  But thankfully, it got better very quickly.  I knew we were racing daylight.  Golden hour was just beginning, so we had about one hour in which to shoot as much as possible.  I had several locations in mind, so it was going to be tough.  But Valerie was a great sport.

I literally could not have completed this shoot without Matt's help.  Being a photographer himself (and having worked together several times before), we were completely in synch. He popped out a bounce card at exactly the moment I was opening my mouth to ask for one.  He knew exactly when the bounce wasn't doing the job anymore and that it was time to switch to flash.  And best of all, he knew exactly where to stand and where to direct the light without me having to explain it.  And then, toward the end of the shoot - after the sun had gone down and we were winding down and getting "a couple more just for fun," he suggested we shoot through the reflector, which created a huge beautiful, soft light.  And we shot for another 20 minutes in three more poses.

My thanks to Matt for all of his help and to Valerie for giving me the opportunity and for trusting me based just on what she's seen me shoot at work.

These are a few of my favorite shots:

See the entire Flickr set here.

An Artist a Day: 10

Today is grunge band day.  I've been listening today to Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots and Nirvana.  I completely forgot to wear Doc Martins and plaid today, but I have enjoyed listening to some music that I haven't heard in quite a while - particularly Pearl Jam's Ten and Vs. albums.

Ten came out in 1991, but got really popular in the spring and summer before my senior year in high school.  It still reminds me of senior car washes and hanging out with friends that summer.  Vs. came out during my freshman year in college and for some reason reminds me of listening to it at night in my dorm room.  "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" was my favorite song from that album, but I recall not really caring for the album much overall at the time.  I remember being really, really disappointed that it sounded so different than Ten.  And it also killed my buying of any future Pearl Jam albums.  Besides, by the time Vitology came out in the winter of 1994 grunge was all but dead anyway, at least as far as I was concerned.

By 1994 I was still into rock (after a fling with techno over the summer) , but a much more mellow kind such as Tom Petty's Wildflowers, Crowded House's Together Alone, Counting Crows' August and Everything After and Nirvana's Unplugged in New York.  I had those albums on heavy rotation that winter, along with quite a bit of Rush.  But following Kurt Kobain's suicide, Unplugged in New York captivated me.  I wasn't a Cobain fan or anything - I was just searching for meaning in the world that he had chosen to abandon.

Stone Temple Pilots burst on the scene in the summer of 1993 and I remember hearing my across-the-hall neighbor blasting "Plush" throughout the halls of the dorm the first week I arrived at college.  I went right out and bought Core and started blasting it myself.  The Purple album was kind of the soundtrack of the spring of '94 for me.  It still brings back memories of watching the Rockets win a world championship, a DeMolay trip to Kansas City where we won a championship of our own and a road trip to Colorado with my then girlfriend and her family.

These bands alone represent both very exciting "top of the world" times in high school (each band's first albums) and very confusing, dark times in college (each band's second album).  The music is still haunting after all these years, but I can finally enjoy listening without the angst and gut-wrenching baggage that they carried for me at the time.  This is some of the music that helped define who I would become as a man, and for that I love every gritty guitar-crunching note.

Playlist: 74 songs; 5.3 hours

The Lock

This is a true story.

On the campus of Sam Houston State University, outside the Lee Drain Building (between AB4 and the ROTC/former Dance building) there is a bike rack with a lock on it with no bike attached.

Now, that lock has been there for a long time - since I was a student at Sam Houston State.  While walking around the campus with Kristi and the kids this weekend, I saw this lock and couldn't believe that it's still there.  It's been almost 15 years, after all, and it hasn't moved.  A building has been torn down and another built right next to it.  And countless bikes have been locked up to the rack right next to it.  I wonder how many people have ever even noticed this lock sitting there, protecting nothing but the pole it's attached to?

I know it's been there since 1997 because it's my lock.

One day I borrowed Kristi's bike to ride to class on, and I locked up her bike in this very spot.  Or at least I thought I had.  It turns out that I had apparently only looped the lock around the bike rack pole and not around the bike frame.  And when I returned for the bike later that day, it was gone.

I'm not quite sure why I left the lock there, but I never went back for it.  And it stayed right there.  I always assumed that the university would just cut it off the pole, but I guess that never reached the top of the priority list.

And there it sits today.  I probably still have the key in storage somewhere, but I'm just going to leave it.  I'm curious how long it will remain there.  Will it still be there when my kids are students there?  Or grandkids?  I picked up the lock, and it's still very firmly locked.  Despite the rust, I'm almost positive that the key would unlock it.  but where's the fun - and the mystery - in that?  For all I know there's an urban legend on campus surrounding this fixture on the SHSU campus.  Or would anyone even notice if one day the lock was just gone?

It's just another part of my legacy, I guess.

An Artist a Day: 6

Today's artists are R.E.M., Spin Doctors, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Gin Blossoms and Peter Gabriel.

Today's playlist marks the first playlist that doesn't feature a single artist or band, but instead is a group of artists with a common bond.  In the case of today, that bond is music I was listening to during my senior year in high school (minus some artists that have their own playlists).  The list was originally intended to be an REM list and was born out of the recent breakup of REM.  But it turns out that I don't really have all that much REM music, so I built today's playlist out of the REM album Life's Rich Pageant, which I had on pretty much constant repeat in my car for awhile in the fall of 1992.

1992 was a fun time for me.  It was the beginning of my senior year of high school and a pretty amazing time for me personally.  I had just made it as a varsity spirit leader, I was really expanding as a cartoonist and as an artist and I was working really hard on the school newspaper as both a cartoonist and as a writer.

The Spin Doctors were also a big part of that year's soundtrack.  The Superman-themed title song, "Pocket Full of Kryptonite," got me started listening and I found that I liked the bluesy, funky jams on their debut album, especially "What Time is It?," "Refrigerator Car," and the 12-plus minute jam "Shinbone Alley/Hard to Exist."  For awhile I actually hated the song "Two Princes" because it was on such heavy rotation on the radio stations we had playing at my senior-year place of employment, Foot Locker.

Peter Gabriel is represented on the list because of the album So.  It was already several years old in 1992, but that's when I discovered it.  And I loved the sound, especially "Red Rain" and "We Do What We're Told."  I seem to recall listening to Peter Gabriel a lot on Sundays and in the rain.  I don't know why.

Big Head Todd and the Monsters and Gin Blossoms are both from the spring of 1993.  Big Head Todd's "Broken Hearted Savior" was getting some airplay on the radio, and after a rough breakup with a girl I was dating it just spoke to me for some reason.  I liked Big Head Todd's heavy sound, and even today it sounds timeless.  Maybe it was my lack of disposable income or my changing musical tastes during college, but Sister Sweetly is the only Big Head Todd album I own.

The Gin Blossom's New Miserable Experience is an album that I started listening to some time around spring break of my senior year and carried me into my first semester in college.  I remember driving around Huntsville listening to "Hey Jealousy" and "Allison Road."  I loved that there was what seemed to be every kind of music on that album, from rock to pop to blues to country.  It was perfect for the time in my life when I was struggling to figure out who and what I wanted to be.  It was an album that couldn't really be defined, so it kept me from defining myself by the type of music I was listening to.  And for unknown reasons - and just like Big Head Todd and the Monsters - it's the only album by this band that I own.  And again, I'm not sure why.

Playlist: 85 songs, 5.9 hours

Big Bend 2011, Part 1

It's been over a month now since I returned from Big Bend, so I guess the tale has steeped long enough...

Following last year's amazing trip to Big Bend, the same four guys - Mark, Harris, Johnny and I - decided that we wanted to go on another camping trip, at a location to be determined later. We had talked about going out to the Guadalupe Mountains to hike Guadalupe Peak, the highest mountain in Texas (at 8,717 feet).  But for some reason, none of us could really get all that excited about it as much as we tried.  So at a lunch meeting in July, three of us (Johnny lives in another town) started talking about where we should go this year.  The choices also included Big Bend Ranch State Park and the Davis Mountains.  Big Bend wasn't really even on the radar.  But going back to Big Bend came up, and the more we talked about it the more we realized that we were getting excited about the idea of going back.  There was a LOT of stuff that we wanted to do last year but couldn't.  There were entire areas of the park that we hadn't even driven to, much less hiked.  So, we decided to head back to Big Bend.  And best of all, we were able to reserve the exact same cabin we stayed in last year.  Bonus!

We would be going on the exact same weekend as the year before, also, because of Mark's travel schedule.  Most people would consider heading out into the desert to hike and camp in August a foolhardy prospect, but we knew that up in the Chisos Mountains, where we would be staying, that it would still be relatively cool.  On the desert floor, however, it was above 100 degrees every day.  But as it turned out, we were in the midst of one of the longest, hottest summers on record, so 100-plus degree heat didn't really scare us much.  After all, the temperatures hovered around 104 degrees in Brenham for more than a month straight (and as it would turn out, it was actually a few degrees cooler in the desert than in Brenham, which hit 110 degrees that weekend - but I'm getting ahead of myself).

Our plan was to try to make this year's trip as different from last year's as possible.  So instead of going on one big long overnight hike, we decided to go on several shorter (and theoretically easier) day hikes.  Johnny requested a trip to the nearby town of Terlingua, so that was certainly on the agenda.  Mark mentioned hiking the Lost Mine Trail and I wanted to hike into Santa Elena canyon (we couldn't last year because the river was up and we would've had to swim across to get to it).  I also requested a hike to Grapevine Hills to see a rock formation called "the balanced rock."  Johnny mentioned Pine Canyon, Ernst Tenaja (and going for a run on a mountain trail).  The tenaja (more on that later) sounded great, but none of the rest of us a.) are in as good a shape as Johnny is b.) like to do things that make us want to vomit and die and c.) are complete badasses who would ever consider running in the freaking mountains.  There's a reason there's a legend surrounding Johnny Johnson.  Chuck Norris has nothing on this guy.

So our agenda would be:
Day 1: Travel and hike to "the window" for sunset
Day 2: Lost Mine Trail, Pine Canyon Trail, Ernst Tenaja
Day 3: Casa Grande (hiking up the back side), Santa Elena Canyon, Terlingua
Day 4: Travel back

The proposed agenda was grouped by location in the park, more or less.  The best layed plans, as they say.  Things would change a little.  But I'll get to that soon.

So the agenda was set.  A trip to REI and Academy, several posts on Facebook and a month later and we were ready to go.  Or so we thought...

Part 2: "Cannibalism and sloth" coming soon...

Conversation with Noble at the mall

Noble: Daddy, a pterranadon eats meat.
Me: they do? Are you a pterranadon?
Noble: no, I'm a Pharaon.

The Story of Old Homestead

I entered two of my photographs in the county fair this year (for the first time ever).  I thought it would be a good experience and would help me to show a little bit of my work.

I entered two photos (I had three, but the image I shot of Keith Warren didn't print to my satisfaction, so it didn't go) - a shot of the Alamo that I shot early one morning back in May (the same morning that I later used small flashes to light the front of the Alamo at sunrise) and a shot that I call "Old Homestead."  And as it turns out, Old Homestead won Reserve Champion.

The story behind the Old Homestead shot is a little interesting, so I thought I'd share it:

This year on New Year's Day, two friends of mine, Nick and Jen, got married near Abilene.  Early on the morning of January 2, I left Abilene headed back to Brenham.  It was 12 degrees outside and everything was frozen, including the windshield washer fluid in my truck.  The moon was especially awesome that night, so I stopped briefly to try to get a shot, with not much success.  I hadn't brought a tripod with me on the trip (I know, I know...) and so I tried rigging up something using lens caps, my keys and my wallet.

After about 30 minutes of freezing my arse off (and after being questioned by a local farmers as to exactly what the hell I thought I was doing), I decided to head on down the road.  

About 30 minutes after sunrise, somewhere between Cross Plains and Comanche, Texas I happened to look in my rear view mirror and saw this great little old house with a windmill sitting up at the top of a hill with a beautiful valley below.  So I whipped my truck around and went back for the shot.  I almost didn't. I had been gone for a couple of days and I was still several hours from home (and it was really, really cold!), so I really just wanted to get down the road so I could see my family.  I actually sat in my truck debating whether I should get out and shoot or just pass it up and move along.  My experience on my photo trips at work has taught me that I often regret it when I decide to pass up a shot in the interest of time, so I got out and started shooting.

I shot in color and I shot several panoramic shots of the hill and valley.  I loved it because everyting was so crisp and golden.  But when I got into the color correction and the editing at home, I found that this shot really lent itself well to a sepia look (probably because it was a natural sepia color anyway.) So that's how I processed it.

As I was preparing my entries for the fair, I had actually forgotten all about this sot.  I've gotten some really interesting shots this year, from Chasing Cane to Back at the Ranch to the San Jacinto Monument to   a B-17 bomber.  But I happened to stumble upon this shot, and it immediately jumped out at me as being perfect for the fair.  So I ditched one of the other shots I was planning and used this one instead.

And I'm glad I did.  It won me $3.00, and now I can say "James Pharaon, Award-winning photographer" with an (almost) straight face.

And if you'd like a copy of "Old Homestead," it's available for purchase at Veer.com.

Remebering SHSU

I'm not sure how I missed this (or forgot about it), but last year I did an interview with the Building SHSU website for a feature called "Remembering SHSU" where I relived a little bit of my experience at Sam Houston State, especially as Sammy Bearkat.

Check it out here if you're so inclined.

Cave Men

For my birthday earlier this year, Kristi and the kids gave me a great present - a Wild Cave Tour at Inner Space Caverns. Last summer we were there taking the regular walking tour when all of a sudden, this guy popped his head up out of a little hole a few feet from the trail. He was wearing a helmet with a light on it, and as he climbed out of the hole we could see that he was absolutely covered in mud and dirt. I was intrigued, so I asked our tour guide about him, and she told us the he was on the Wild Cave tour. I knew then that I had to do that.

So my birthday present this year was a Wild Cave Tour with any two friends I wanted to take with me. I knew right away who I wanted to take, but unfortunately neither Chuck Norris nor Ronald Reagan were available (the latter for obvious reasons), so I elected instead to take my brother, Adam, and my future brother-in-law, Johnny. You remember Adam and Johnny, right? So for their birthdays, we gave them each a ticket to the tour.

It took us awhile to coordinate our schedules and nail down a weekend to go, but we finally landed on July 30 as the date. Adam and Johnny were supposed to spend the night Friday night and we would leave for Austin early Saturday morning. We got a bit of a letdown on Friday, however, when Johnny called to say he wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be coming. I'll admit - I was bummed. It's nothing against Adam, but I really envisioned the three of us going together, and it just wouldn't be the same without Johnny. So when I got a text from Johnny that he was feeling better and was on his way, I breathed a big sigh of relief.

Johnny, Adam and I pulled out of Brenham at 8:30 and headed toward Austin. I enjoyed the ride there as we all talked and Adam shared information about the apartment he just got in Bryan for his upcoming semester at Blinn College. Johnny and I swapped horrible roommate stories. Although we had some very similar roommates, Johnny won because his story involved maggots and a puking dog. I just can't compete with that.

We pulled up to Inner Space Cavern right at 10:00, exactly on time. We joined the group that had already assembled for the tour and we all picked out a helmet, knee and elbow pads. Our guides, Billy and Brad ran through some basic instructions and some safety information. Then we headed down into the cave.

As a group, we decided that we wanted a more advanced route, so we started with an entrance called "Head First Hole," in which you literally had to squeeze through a tiny hole head first. It was a great way to start and set the expectations for the rest of the trip. It was exhilarating! Getting through that first hole reassured us that we could, in fact, do this. I think Adam was a little nervous about caving, but he warmed up quickly and was a good sport - he did all of the advanced "optional" stuff with me and Johnny that some of the guys on the tour opted out of.

The tour was amazing, and the quickest four hours I've had in a long, long time. I didn't take a camera down with me, but I wish I had (and I probably will if I do it again) because the sights down there are amazing. The tour was challenging. We spent most of the time crawling on our hands and knees and there were many times when we had to "Spider-man crawl" to get through some really tight tunnels. Anyone who is the slightest bit claustrophobic would have a tough time because there were some holes where you literally felt stuck and just had to keep wriggling until you maneuvered your way through.

On the tour, as we were crawling along, I started hearing ripping noises. Then I looked down and realized that I had ripped a huge hole in the crotch of my jeans. I felt sorry for the guy climbing and crawling behind me, which was usually Adam. But that's okay - early on the tour he stopped and apologized for not wearing a belt and that I might see his boxers.

We had a great day, and as we emerged from the cave the people on the walking tour and in the gift shop had a 50/50 reaction mix of "wow, that looks cool" and "wow, you guys are nuts!" Because seeing people climb up out of the hole we emerged from was how I found out about the tour, I was glad that a tour group got to see us emerge, too. It was fun to see their faces.

Johnny suggested a place called the Hangtown Grill for lunch, so we headed there after a quick outdoor shower and change of clothes. Then we headed home, tired but happy.

Thanks again to Kristi and the kids for giving me the tour for my birthday present and for giving me the opportunity to invite Adam and Johnny. And thanks to Adam and Johnny for going. I'm glad each of them went because it wouldn't have been as good without either of them. I'm looking forward to doing a lot more stuff with both of these guys. Up next with Adam: a weekend road trip, and with Johnny: Big Bend!

Before:


After:

The Story of My 18th Birthday

Last night I posted on Facebook that I couldn't remember my 18th birthday.

This morning I woke up and remembered. I spent most of the day in bed with the worst case of food poisoning I have ever had. It turns out I hadn't forgotten it - I had blocked it out.

I was in New Orleans on a DeMolay trip. The day before we had gone to a neighborhood cafe and I had ordered a chicken salad sandwich. Well, later that day I started feeling completely horrible. I went to bed early and stayed there most of my birthday. We were competing that day and somehow they managed to get me up and dressed so I could compete in the Initiatory and DeMolay degrees, and then I went back to bed.

At dinner time, I still wasn't feeling well, so I asked one of the guys to get me a banana at the convenience store next door to our hotel. I managed to get the banana down, hoping that just having something in my stomach would make me feel better. The guys didn't want to leave me at the hotel by myself, so I reluctantly agreed to go out to dinner with the group to Hooters. I *think* it was Hooters. Actually, I'm pretty sure it was. At that point in my life - and when I went out with the guys - there was rarely a time when we didn't eat at Hooters if one was available.

I ordered a Philly cheesesteak sandwich and waited. As I waited, I started feeling violently ill. The suddenly, panic. I jumped up and ran to the restroom, flung open the door and almost made it to the toilet before I started vomiting banana everywhere. I looked around at the mess I had just made, but didn't really care. After more then 24 hours, I felt suddenly as if I were Superman retreating from Kryptonite - my powers suddenly rushed back into my body and I felt strong again. I washed my face and headed out of the restroom just as a man cam in. I motioned to the toilet stall and said "don't go in there."

By the time I got back to the table, my appetite had returned - a powerful appetite. My sandwich was waiting for me and I dug in. I don't remember much after that, but that was probably for other reasons. We were in New Orleans, after all. ;)

Daddy's Girl

This morning, we were having a light conversation about life expectancy. I said I might live to be a couple hundred years old because I'll be a cyborg.

Kayci looked up and without missing a beat said, "yeah, a cydork..."

I'm so proud of that girl.

Big Bend, Part 4 : The Conclusion

See also: Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3

I was the first up the next morning. It was bothering me that the other guys kept having to wait on me, so I wanted to be ready to go. I showered and got dressed before anyone else got up. The other guys groggily came around and we began packing up to leave. The office opened at 7:00 and we wanted to be there when they opened so that we could go ahead and get on the road. None of us were really hungry, so we decided to wait until Fort Stockton to have breakfast. The sky behind Casa Grande - formerly El Capitan - was beginning to glow where the sun would rise over the ridge, so I got out my camera.



We checked out of the cabin and complained about whichever liar had determined the mileage up on the trails. What they claimed was 3.3 miles felt a lot more like 20 or 25 miles. And we got on the road. Johnny wanted to try to get some wildlife shots on the way out, and was hoping that we would see some javalina or a bear. We saw some javalina, but I didn't stop the truck in time and messed up his shot. I told the guys that if I saw Creepy Guy walking on the road that I was just going to run him over. As we were headed down the mountain, Johnny suddenly spotted something big and black to the left near the top of one of the hills. It was a bear. We slammed on the brakes and all jumped out of the truck to take a look. It was about 300 yards away, headed up the hill. All of us had our cameras out and were snapping away. Then some rude lady in a white Honda came up behind us and yelled at us and barked at us to please move, even though the truck was about 80 percent off the road already. Stupid crabby lady. I hoped that back up at her campsite that a mountain lion was eating her dog.







As we reached the Panther Junction park headquarters, all of our phones sprang to life and began dinging and pinging with missed texts and messages. The signal wasn't very strong, but it allowed us some contact with our loved ones for the first time in a few days. It was odd because we hadn't gotten any kind of signal when we passed by just a couple of days before.

We left the park quietly, begrudgingly. Outside the park, the speed limit increased, so we went faster. There were birds everywhere. We saw quail all over. Ahead of us, there were some on the road that began running off the road as we approached. Suddenly, one darted back onto the road and tried to fly just as we reached it. It slammed into the passenger's side window with a loud thud, waking the snoozing Harris and Mark with a start. The window had already been cracked, but now there was a big, new crack where the bird had hit. I think that if he had hit just a couple of inches to the left where the other crack was, that it might have shattered the window and Johnny would have had a quail in his lap.

The drive back to Fort Stockton seemed extraordinarily long. Maybe it was because we were hungry. Maybe it was because I was worried about every bird I saw flying into my truck. I don't know. But it seemed to take forever. We stopped at IHOP and everyone had a really big breakfast. The wind was really blowing and we were fighting a nasty headwind on the most of the way back, which didn't do great things for our gas mileage. Lunch was Mexican food in Fredericksburg. Had we had one more day, I bet we would have gone and hiked Enchanted Rock while we were there. But that sounds like it'll be a good trip for next time.

We pulled into Brenham around 6:30 and unloaded the truck at Mark's house. We shook hands and said goodbye and all went our separate ways. Harris almost took out one of Mark's trees with his truck as he was backing out. And normal life resumed.

It was great to see Kristi and the kids again. I felt as if I had been gone for a couple of weeks instead of just four days. I came back and there was a notable improvement in Noble's speech and he was using some new words. Right now, he's changing hour by hour. I swear Kayci, in addition to losing the tooth, had grown two inches. I came back home to the life that I love and to the people that I love. All the next week, I slept very, very well as my body tried to recover.

So now it's time to finish putting away the camping gear. Kristi and the kids have been very patient about it. And it's time to start planning ideas for the next trip. It took me 15 years to get back to Big Bend after last time. I don't want it to take that long again. In fact, camping and being outdoors is something that I love - it's so much a part of who I am. Back in high school and college I went camping all the time, sometimes three times a month. And I want my kids to grow up with the great memories of camping and the outdoors that I have. So my pledge to myself is that we're going to build that into our lives. It may only be a camping trip a couple of times a year with the family - and hopefully a couple more every year with the guys - but it will be something. Being outdoors in God's creation recharges my batteries and re-centers me in a way that nothing else can. It's part of what makes me... me. And I like when I feel like me.

Thanks for reading my long, rambling account of the trip. I know it's been long, and there have been a few inside jokes. It'll be back to geeky things, Apple and politics before too long here at Destructoville. But I think I'm going to take a little break and just relax for a little bit. But before long, it'll be back to regularly scheduled ranting. Take care.

Big Bend, Part 3

See also: Part 1 and Part 2

I awoke at 3:00 AM and thought it was morning and that the sun had come up. The moon had risen and all the stars had come out, and it was blindingly bright. I had trouble going back to sleep, so after an hour or so I pulled out my iPhone and watched the last half of Anchorman. Toward the very end of the movie, I drifted off to sleep until my alarm woke me at 6:30. I had set it so that I could make sure and catch the sunrise. Our cliff faced southeast (which I guess is why they ended up deciding to call it the Southeast Rim).

Johnny was awake and thinking the same thing I was. He had his camera in hand. As I walked out toward the rim, everything was in silhouette. The pink and purple sky glowed behind the crisp black outlines of the pine trees. The I saw something move. It startled me for a moment. It was big, and it was moving quietly out toward the cliff. My first thought was that it was a bear. Ironically, just then, my stomach growled, and I stopped in my tracks, waiting for the next sound. The Thing moved slowly, quietly, deliberately. Soon I could see that it was walking like a man up on its hind legs. I stepped closer and got my camera ready...



Harris was standing out next to the cliff watching the sky glow brighter and brighter. He had beaten all of us. As it turned out, none of us had slept all that well that night. The other guys were talking about thunder that they heard off in the distance and hoped that it wouldn't rain. They talked about something they heard scratching around through our campsite. I had heard no such things, but when I did sleep, thankfully I slept soundly. Mark soon joined the three of us out at the cliff edge and we watched as the sun slowly, then more and more quickly, rose through the mist. Johnny and I clicked away with our cameras.









We had each brought our own breakfasts. Mine consisted of cereal bars, apricots and nuts. I think Mark and Harris ate dried oatmeal. Johnny fashioned a hanglider out of the skins of the deer we had seen the night before, swooped down to a nearby Mexican village for a full Migas and burrito breakfast and then scaled the 200-foot cliff back up to our camp site. Or maybe he ate nuts, too. I don't exactly recall.

As we broke down our camp, one of the deer from the night before - a buck with velvety antlers - was very interested in what we were doing. Just as the night before, he wasn't shy at all and came within just a few feet of us. Johnny and I got some great close-up shots as he grazed on grasses nearby and just kinda hung around.



We got on the trail about 9:00 and quietly made good time. Our legs took a little time getting loosened up. It was already getting warm. The night hadn't been anywhere near the 48 degrees the forecast had called for. The good news was that our hike was supposed to be considerably easier than it had been the day before. The bad news was that all of us were running low on water. The warm weather and strenuous hike had taken up more water than we had planned for. I left the cabin with six liters and was down to just one to last all day. The other guys were in a similar predicament, so we had agreed to take it slowly and take more frequent breaks if we needed it so as to conserve water.

We walked along the rim and were treated to several more great, sweeping overlooks. On the Southwest Rim, we got a great look of "The Saddle" and "Mule Ears," both rock formations named for the way they look. Santa Elena Canyon was also faintly visible through the haze. Our hike was fairly level until about halfway down the Northwest Rim trail, when it began to a gentle slope downward that would continue for most of the day.







At the Laguna Meadows trailhead, we stopped for a rest. It was getting pretty hot at this point as we descended from the rim's altitude of 6500 feet (give or take six inches). I took off my shirt and hung it from a tree limb to cool off a little bit. Then we heard someone shuffling up the trail from the way we were headed. I finished putting my shirt back on just as we got a look at the hiker's face. Guess who it was. Wrong. It was Creepy Guy. Running into this guy three times in three days in three completely different areas of the park was just more than I could take. We all said hi to Creepy Guy, who asked if we had seen any wildlife. He obviously wanted to tell us about something he had seen, so we bit and asked him what kind of animals he had seen. Creepy Guy went into great detail about all the stupid bugs and birds he had seen on the trail, including a couple that I really, really wanted to call BS on (but didn't). By this time, his company was becoming pretty stale, so we asked him where he was headed. "Wherever my feet take me" was his reply. I damn near came unglued. But luckily I think he sensed that we were about to perform a ritual killing right then and there on his creepy arse and turned to be on his way. Once he was out of immediate earshot, we couldn't hold it in and ragged on the Creepy Guy for his attitude. I said that there was only room for one smartass on this mountain, to which Harris replied, "yeah, and there's already four." We had a good laugh and got moving again.

The rest of the hike was more long than tough. The Laguna Meadow trail is 3.3 miles of mostly measured, downhill trail. It would have been much easier to have come up this way (note for future reference). We had elected to keep walking and to have lunch back at the cabin. There was great celebration when we rounded a hill and finally saw the Basin Lodge in the valley below. More celebration followed when later we realized that we were finally below the elevation of "Disney hill." We stopped one last time with about a mile to go and finished off what little water we had left.

We finally dragged into the cabin area about two 'o-clock. We each drank as much water as we could and sat down to rest. Sandwiches followed, which were just ridiculously good.









It was early in the day, and rather than take naps, we wanted to do something else. Mark suggested taking the scenic drive down to the river to see the Santa Elena Canyon,. I especially liked that suggestion since it would mean an hour of sitting in the air conditioned truck. So we grabbed our hiking boots, got some more water for the hike into the canyon and took off.

Along the way, we drove along the desert floor and stopped several times to view some of the sites, such as an abandoned ranch house and to see the Mule Ears:



As we drove toward the Santa Elena Canyon and the Rio Grande, there were huge sheer cliffs rising in front of us. The closer we got, the more massive and imposing they became, like a giant gate put there to keep anything from passing. We pulled up to the Santa Elena Canyon trail area, which was completely empty. This was the only part of the trip when I had been really, genuinely nervous. There were thick bamboo-like plants all around the trail headed down to the river. It would have been an ideal place for someone wanting to stage an ambush to hide. It would also be a great place for illegals to hide. But luckily, the walk down to the river was only about 50 yards. The river was up, so we couldn't easily walk over to the canyon trail to go into the canyon without getting either really wet or really muddy. So we elected not to go across. In front of us were the giant cliffs we had seen from the road separated by the Rio Grande. On the right side was the United States. On the the left side was Mexico. There was an uneasiness in the air, and we didn't stay long.







On the way back, we took a dirt road called Old Maverick Road. It started out in fairly good shape, but got more and more rough as we went. After a couple of miles, we saw a Border Patrol truck coming toward us slowly, searching for illegals. It was a relief to see him. He waved as we drove by slowly and we proceeded on our way.



About halfway down the road, we stopped at a little shelter called "Luna's Jacal." It was here in this little house that a man named Gilberto Luna lived to be 108 years and raised 14 kids. The roof of the jacal (pronounced hah-KAHL) only came up to my chest, which means that to be inside, one would have to stoop or crawl. I guess they only slept inside. I couldn't even imagine the kind of tough, rugged existence these people must have had.





As we reached the road that traveled back up into the Chisos Mountains, we stopped. Johnny had seen a snake on the side of the road and wanted to photograph it. I never saw it, but he said it was a coachwhip. Turning around to head back to the truck, I couldn't believe my eyes. The scenery seemed so unreal. The misty mountains rose in the distance from the desert floor, which was covered in all kinds of plants. It was amazing.







A little further up the road in the mountains, we stopped again when we saw a huge tarantula crossing the road. I had recently read an article in Texas Highways magazine about them, so even though he was creepy I realized he wasn't dangerous. So Johnny and I shot some photos of the spider as Mark and Harris watched out for traffic.





We pulled back up to the cabin hungry. We had brought barbecued chicken, beans and plenty of potato salad for dinner. There were four chairs on the front porch of our cabin, so we sat outside and ate. A Mexican Jay (think really big blue jay) was harassing us, so he almost got hit by my flying plate. We had a big laugh about that. Then we watched a roadrunner scurry around the cabins, imagining that his friend the Mexican Jay had sent him on a search and destroy mission. Luckily, he was spared from the business end of my plate.

The sun was beginning to set and shone pink and orange on Casa Grande - formerly known as El Capitan. We opened some beer and sat outside talking, laughing and having a good time. Mark brought some kind of blue rum drink called Zombie. It tasted really good and we went through it quickly. Then the spiced rum came out. We sat there for almost six hours just laughing and talking. We had no place to be and no schedule other than to get up in the morning and head home. It was a great time.





After the Zombie came out, all my photos started looking like this:





Actually, I was trying to get a shot of the stars using a long shutter, but I never really achieved it. After a long day, we were in a great mood and finally stumbled in to sleep. We all slept pretty well that night.