Regular Life

Our trip today ended with Ben saying, “I have no pants on,” with a huge smile on his face.

We went to Turner Falls Park, in the Arbuckle Mountains of southern Oklahoma. It was a shock to me too when I found out that Oklahoma had anything resembling a mountain, and my first trip there was an all-day event, spent mostly with complete strangers. Today I was sharing it with my wife and our son, so I expected it to be even more enjoyable.

It sure didn’t start out that way.

I screwed up by not waking Shannon up before 9 a.m. I’m accustomed to giving her time to sleep in on the weekends while I play with Ben. She surprised me this morning, though. Instead of her usual, “give me a snooze,” she immediately got out of bed and a flurry of activity ensued. She knew that a two-hour drive to our destination would give us little time to spend before heading back home.

Our flurry of activity was one of those that somehow doesn’t end up making anything go faster, and we didn’t leave the house until 11:45. Part of that was spent trying to contact friends whose dog we had been hosting while they were out of town. They had planned to pick up the dog that morning. We never reached them, so we left a message and put the dog in its carrier.

On the way there, we stopped at a convenience store for a bathroom break. During Shannon’s turn, I noticed two men wearing identical yellow shirts and green pants. I looked around to see if they were driving a company truck. At the gas pump was a green pickup bearing a logo reading, “North Carolina Forest Service.” Below that were letters that spelled out, “Fire Control.” Curiousity gnawed away at me for at least 15 seconds before I got out of the minivan and approached the men climbing out of the truck.

If I had used that 15 seconds thinking instead of being curious, I could have avoided what later seemed like a stupid question.

One of the men explained that they were there to help fight the wildfires raging in the area. Groups from the NCFS were alternating 14-day shifts in the effort to fight these fires brought on largely by drought and windy conditions. Word of the fires has been all over the news lately, but I had not thought about possibly seeing some of that during our trip.

Incidentally, up to seven of these fires have been attributed to teenage boys, who reportedly admitted they started them. Ah, the youth of today. “I helped torch more than 400,000 acres of land and killed some people. What did you do this winter?”

Turner Falls Park was a veritable oasis. The water still flowed freely enough to fill the picturesque streams with translucent green water. Although we saw fewer than 20 people during our time there, I imagined that it would be very busy in spring and summer, considering it’s the nearest place to Dallas (and maybe Oklahoma City) to offer trails, caves, and cascades. Let me clarify that. The nearest place to offer those things amongst scenery and seclusion that is up to my standards. I don’t enjoy hiking along a stream while the cityscape looms all around. It somehow seems more depressing than uplifting.

Ben was thrilled to get out and walk. Before we got 50 yards, he said, “Want to throw a rock in the water.” Neither of us had any idea where he got that… um… idea. Once he started, though, that was what he wanted to do the rest of the time we were streamside. We joined in, only to discover later rule 14 on the park’s flyer: Throwing any harmful objects or projectiles, including rocks, is prohibited.

Oops.

Beside the large pool below the main falls, I shot a few pics (on my new Manfrotto tripod!) while Shannon and Ben splashed rocks of increasing size into the water. A woman holding crutches sat on a large boulder, taking in the sights. I noticed that her left leg stopped at a point about three inches above where her knee would be. A group of people walked around from behind me and, before seeing her from the front, asked if she would mind taking their picture.

The woman gladly said she would and grabbed up her crutches to stand. Nobody in the group flinched when they realized she had use of only one leg, but I felt a bit discomfited when she said, “Let’s get the falls behind you,” and the people did not move. She struggled a bit to take couple of steps, still holding the disposable Fujifilm camera. The group stood as still as subjects in an 1880’s portrait studio.

By this time, I was only pretending to compose my shot. It was brutal. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“You know, I could take that picture for you,” I said.

A wide smile swept relief over the woman’s face. “That would be great. Thanks.”

In that situation, what could those people do once they asked her the favor? Say, “Oh, wait, part of your leg is gone. We’ll get someone else.” It’s impossible to know how a stranger will react to something like that.

When I took a turn throwing rocks with Ben, I counted off, “One, two, three.” He threw his rock before the comma after the word “one.”

The next time, however, he already had caught on. After he and I had picked out our rocks, he said, “One, two, three!” and we launched our splash-inducing projectiles. How much more fun can a father and his toddler son have? I couldn’t imagine.

When we got back to the minivan, Ben said, “Need to change a diaper.” The back of his pants was wet with something that could have been water, could have been… you get the idea. So, we changed it and I strapped him back into his car seat for the trip home. I pulled the rear passenger door handle, and as it shut, Ben looked at me and smiled as he said, “I have no pants on!”

I convinced Shannon that seeing downtown Davis, the city that runs Turner Falls Park, was a good idea. Turns out it wasn’t, but it got us a good laugh. When we saw a plain, small brick church, I commented, “Very humble.”

Shannon replied, “If by ‘humble’ you mean ‘ugly,’ then it’s ugly.”

“What was that?”

After we laughed for a few minutes, Shannon said, “Now, you can blog that one.” Sorry, can’t tell you the other one.

On the way home I thought of my North Carolina Forest Service buddy. We saw a huge plume of smoke, some brown, some white, that climbed skyward to meet the clouds. As we got closer, we could see that the fire was less than a mile from Interstate 35, and closing in on a scenic overlook where several 18-wheelers parked, their slumbering drivers tucked happily behind the cab.

When we put Ben into his carseat, we sometimes say, “I need to get you strapped in.”

Ben slept all the way back, but as we picked up a prescription at CVS, he gave us a good finish to a long day with way too much time in the car. “I wanna go home. I need to get strapped out.”

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