******WARNING: Here comes another loooong entry. If you don't have five minutes, please feel free to visit again. My apologies for the length, it was another long night.*******
Summer is starting to rear its ugly (scalding hot) head and it's the planning time for family vacations. Every year, my family and I start to ponder the idea of visiting places like Italy, France, England, Brazil, even Africa. Every single time we all agree on one single destination: Garner's State Park.
My family and I have been visiting the park for the past twenty-two years. My mom was pregnant with my youngest brother when she was flipping around in the water. Of course, at the time she wasn't aware of the bun in the oven. If you haven't realized it yet, my family is full of traditions. We have one for every holiday, birthday, special occasion, you name it, we got one. Garner's happens to be the summer one.
I swear, the whole freakin' trip is a tradition. Start off the morning early, pack all our stuff, then head over to McDonald's to buy breakfast. Take off around 7am. Drive all the way until we hit Uvalde and stop at some gasoline station where we're looked at weird by its patrons. I've never understood why we're stared at and I've never paid attention to the name of the store. Doesn't really matter. We take our restroom break, stock up on munchies, and then head off again. Enter the park, find our 'usual' spot and unload all our crap. The San Marcos comforter is placed on the ground and my dad sets up his Sirius radio to the 60s station.
Note: Back before I bought him the Sirius radio (most money I've ever spent on a Christmas gift), my dad would pack up some rinky-dinky radio he had at home. He'd set it up, pull out the antenna and tune it in to KONO 101, San Antonio's local oldies station. The reception was good, as long as it was put in the right spot, and we'd be jamming out to the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Shirelles, etc. There was a period when my dad would take blank cassette tapes and record the station, so that when we'd head back to Laredo, he could still listen to his beloved station. Now it's freely available for online streaming. Yay for technology...but I bet you a dollar my dad would still prefer his cassettes.
After we've lathered up on sunblock, we head out to the Frio River to see who will be the
Ok, so it's not really a mountain, more like a huge hill, but it breaks off so it looks like a cliff. I've trekked up that thing twice in the twenty sum years I've been visiting it. I'm scared of heights so the the steep climb makes me terribly uncomfortable. Various family members go up like it's nothing. I'm sure I'd be the first to fall off so I'm not gonna even chance it. After the montaña, another dip in the rio, then another bite, and off to change in the nasty bathroom stalls. Alright, I'm gonna share something...since we've been going to Garner's, we've gone to go and change in the bathrooms maybe some three times. We've used the back of our cars as our changing rooms for years. I know, I know, public indecency and what not, but it's better than catching something at the gross restrooms. Nimodo, just don't go peeking into other people's cars!
Then starts our journey back home. When I was younger, it was great. I'd fall asleep as soon as we'd leave the park, start drooling on my younger brother, and leave it all up to Dad. Now, it's my daughter that fell asleep as soon as she got on the car and I'm left the responsibility of making sure she gets home safely. Dr. Pepper and dance tunes helped me get all the way to Carrizo Springs. Then starts the second half of the tradition.
Cleo's has been our burger joint pit stop in Carrizo for years. Back when we first started visiting, it was just known as Cleo's and they sold Mexican food and burgers. Today, Church's (darn those large corporations) leeched itself onto the restaurant. We'll sit there, hair all disheveled, eyes red from opening them in the water, skin starting to turn pink from the burn, and looking tired as hell. I'm sure the locals think we're a crazy bunch-they were surprised at our order of seven burger combos, I guess they usually don't go above two-but we've always found that place to be like home. After we eat our burgers, which are some of the best burgers I've ever eaten, we head over to the Pico next door, put gas, reload on munchies, and start towards home again.
It's a trip of a day but there's so much stuff piled into it. When we were younger, we'd travel with several other family members. I think one year we were a total of five families that went together. As the years have gone by, it's been whittled down to my immediate family, which is just fine really cuz we can be a riot all by ourselves. We were introduced to Garner's when we were kids, I introduced it to my daughter and I hope in the future, she'll be visiting the park with her family. It's a simple trip. For those that crave adventure and the hustle and bustle of some fantastic place...you really won't find it at Garner's. But if you wanna see nature at its grandest, spend some quality time with the people that really mean something to you, and start building a yearly tradition, then Garner's is definitely for you. I certainly prefer it over any other destination...hands down.
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| a day at Garner's back when innocence was alive and well |
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