Trip to Texas- Part 1, in which we arrive and play foursquare

The reason I haven't posted in a while is that my family and I have been gone to Texas for the past week or so. Here is the first part of the edited version of the journal entries I wrote while we were on the trip.

May 13, 2005

My family was up early this morning. There was the usual heap of baggage along the dining room wall, which, as usual, disappeared into the bowels of the car. We fidgeted around outside. It had rained heavily the night before, and there were gooey stretches of mud where my father had sown grass seed yesterday. A crimson cardinal swooped down and snatched some of the seed up in its beak. We had to wait until my grandmother arrived before we could leave, for she was going down to Texas with us. When she came, my mother and I chose to ride with her in her car, and then we set out. I sat in the back seat and stared out the window. Green hills rolled by. Purple vetch and red Indian paintbrush floated like stars in the lush grass. We ate lunch at an Arby’s in Henryetta. Since the milkshake machine wasn’t working and my father had ordered milkshakes for us, the manager gave us four fresh apple turnovers, which were crisp and flaky on the outside, with gooey apples on the inside. I drove my grandmother’s car from Henryetta to Paris, where we stopped for gas. We drove through Bogata and Pittsburgh, too. I was very glad when it was my mother’s turn to drive. We drove through high hills cloaked in pine trees: the Ouachita Mountains. Blue valleys opened before us. When we crossed the Red River into Texas, the banks along the roads were golden with coreopsis, swimming like yellow fish in a green sea of grass. Tall pine, oak, and sweetgum trees loomed over the road, striping the galaxies of flowers with shadow.

At last we pulled into our cousins’ house in Nacogdoches. Peter greeted us flailing a large stick and shouting. While the boys carried things inside, Aunt Lisa gave my mother a tour of their newly-landscaped yard. Brown anoles scurried over the rocks, eyeing us inquisitively. After supper, everyone except the women went outside to play foursquare. Mary was too little to play, so she just sat nearby and scribbled on the driveway with a piece of charcoal. I proved to be rather clumsy for foursquare (which is a cross between volleyball and basketball, but without any hoops or nets), so Mary and I went around behind the house to swing on the hammock. The cats oozed out of the deep shadows of the surrounding woods and perched on the garden wall, glaring at us out of huge golden eyes. The sky above was like a clear blue face, crossed with one sandy snake-trail of cloud. From across the lawn, I could hear Lillian squealing and the boys shouting in excitement. While they stood in line to take turns at the game, Andrew, Brother1, Brother2, Lillian, Peter, and Ross all hooted on their hand-horns, making a noise like a host of foghorns in the evening quiet. Marry giggled as I tickled her or tossed her about.

Eventually I went back indoors. Aunt Lisa was knitting a washcloth while she talked with my mother and grandmother. The others came in, too. Ross paraded around in his enormous hat, which he built for a home school hat party next Monday. He made it out of PVC pipes covered with newspaper so that it looks rather like the sail of a ship. Peter had an old captain’s hat to go along with it. We showered and went to bed. I slept in the girls’ room, with Lillian, Annalee, Mary, and Daisy. Just as I had begun to drift off to sleep, a soft, small object flew through the air and hit my chest. I sat up in sleepy indignation, dangling the stuffed animal in one hand, and saw Uncle Kirk standing in the door. “Whoops! I thought you were Mary!” he gasped. I laughed and laid the little dog down by Mary (who is only about three years old), and then lay down myself. Across the room, Lillian and Daisy giggled and complained about how they couldn’t get to sleep (maybe if they’d stopped talking, it would’ve been easier for them!).

May 14, 2005

I woke up to hear Daisy reading a Dr. Seuss book to Mary, though Annalee and Lillian were still both sound asleep. I dressed and tottered blearily into the dining room. My father used Ross’s laptop to check up on the news of the military base closing- we were very relieved to find that Vance AFB hasn’t been scheduled for closure. After breakfast, all of us kids went outside to play foursquare. By the way, here’s a list of my siblings and cousins and their ages, in order from youngest to oldest:

Ross: sixteen

Brother1: sixteen

Andrew: fourteen

Daisy: thirteen

Peter: thirteen

Brother2: twelve

Lillian: ten

Annalee: eight

Mary: three

The air became very humid, so us girls splashed down to the creek that flows through the woods in front of the house. The cold water flowed over our feet as we slopped through gooey sand. The sun slanted through the thick trees, shining through the hazy air. Shayfur, the black cat, followed us, meowing worriedly.

When Uncle Kirk returned from doing his morning rounds at the hospital (he’s a doctor), he took all of us except Aunt Lisa and my grandmother and Mary to the football field at the university. A light breeze stirred in the deep bowl of the stadium, but other that, the air was so still and humid that breathing was a chore. We played soccer. Other faces flushed from the heat, and Peter and I both got headaches from the sunshine, while Annalee got winded from stopping one of Ross’s hard kicks with her midriff. The score in the end was two to two.

We went home for lunch, and after lunch, we all collapsed onto the sofas and the floor in the cool shade of the living room. We watched “The Incredibles”, and when that was over and we were somewhat recovered from the heat, we all marched down to the creek to build a dam with Uncle Kirk. The humidity had dissipated in the afternoon. Shayfur was a member of the party, too, prowling along the bank, and peering at us through the vines and rotting logs. While Brother2 and Peter scraped up gravel with pickaxes, Lillian and I pulled sand from the bank, and Uncle Kirk, Brother1, and Brother2 scooped the sand and gravel on their shovels and packed it onto the dam. We paddled around in the mud, and Andrew threw depth charges (balls of sand) into the substantial pool behind the dam, creating quite a splash- and quite a lot of outraged screams whenever the splash hit anyone. Black dragonflies hovered over the water, dancing pas-de-deux together. Daisy, Peter, and I hiked up the creek after the dam was done. We waded where the water was shallow enough, and the sun-warm current rippled over our tanned toes. In some places, we hiked along the bank, where our feet sank in the soft sand and creepers tickled our legs. We clambered over rocky growths in the water, our feet disturbing shoals of minnows that flickered away into the shallows. When we returned to the dam, we found that the other boys were engaged in a hot mudball fight. I convinced them to ceasefire long enough for me to escape unscathed up to the house.

Brother1 caught an anole, and Annalee produced a box which she had constructed with a clear plastic top so that it would hold a living reptile or insect just right. Once inside, the anole obligingly changed from bright green to brown, in order to match the color of the cardboard walls. Its needle-thin ribs expanded and deflated rapidly under its thin, scaly skin as it breathed.

Ross grilled hamburgers and chicken for supper. After supper, we went outside to play foursquare again. Daisy rode the pedal-car up and down the driveway, with Annalee rumbling behind her on a pair of rollerblades, and Mary pattering behind Annalee on her own pink feet. A nighthawk soared through the stairs of the air, spiraling upwards, combing the clouds’ gleaming silver hair. I rubbed Beamer’s ears for him- he’s a magnificent black cat, and as I stroked him, clouds of silky black fur floated away on the breeze. I pushed Mary on the swingset, and the wooden beams mewed as she swung to and fro. Blue light drained from the sky, leaving golden dregs along the horizon. After the younger children were in bed, Ross, Brother1, and I sat around in the living room with the adults, listening to music: mostly Leahy, and an Andean group that Aunt Lisa likes. Ross, Brother1, and I went back to the boys’ room to talk for a while about music before we went to bed.