Texas Rocks (double meaning)

Hey guys,

It is 3:41 in Fort Worth. This is my first time to blog, it is a big step for me. I don't really use the interweb much.

I thought I would tell y'all about my backpacking trip. On the Thursday after school got out, at about 2:00 AM I got into Fort Worth and unloaded all my clothes and stuff from the war wagon, and then loaded up my backpacking gear and got to bed at 3:30ish. I woke up in about an hour and a half and headed to the donut shop to meet the rest of my fellow backpackers. The crew included Rob, Will, T-Rob, myself, Malcolm (our good friend that goes to Vandy), and Cameron (another good friend who goes to OSU). We left Fort Worth around 6:00 AM on Thursday after loading up the wagon. I slept for a while and was awakened by the war wagon making some odd noises (surprise, surprise). It was about 10:00 AM We were in Quanah, TX. The transmission was having some problems, mainly reverse didn't work and 1st gear barely worked. I talked to a mechanic in Quanah and he said that I probably wouldn't make it to Palo Duro State Park, much less back home afterwards. I called my dad and he said the same thing. Naturally, we disregarded all warnings and kept going. Now in order to prolong the life of the transmission, we needed to stay in 2nd gear or higher. This resulted in a couple high speed turns, and about as many negated stop signs. We arrived in Palo Duro with great anticipation. We packed up and headed out into the canyon. After about 5 hours of hiking we had reached the rim of the canyon and were looking at an amazing view. We ate dinner overlooking the canyon. We got in our sleeping bags when it got dark. Rob and Cameron had both presumed that they would be able to sleep fine in their clothes with no sleeping bag. They got a rude awakening (except they weren't asleep) at about 2 in the morning with a 20 mph wind and a temperature of about 50 degrees. Needless to say Rob slept about 30 minutes and cameron slept about 3 hours, thanks to a makeshift fire they got going for a little while. I woke up at about 10:00 with sun pwning me in teh face. Malcolm and T-Rob were there, but Rob and Cameron and Will weren't. Malcolm informed me that they had hiked back to the car to get their sleeping bags which they realized they needed. Apparently Malcolm and Rob's convo at a bout 6:30 AM went something like this:

Rob: Hey, dude we are gonna go get the sleeping bags.

Malcolm: ghhhud.... wait, what? (awakening)

Rob: Yeah We couldn't sleep last night.

Malcolm: Ok, where should we meet y'all?

Rob: Where we were talking about hiking to last night.

Malcolm: Where is that?

Rob: ok....good

So, basically we had no clue where they were when we woke up. T-Rob, malcolm, and I headed down across the canyon and up the other side a little bit to get a decent vantage point to try and catch a glimpse of them. We yelled a couple times and got no reply, so we decided to take a break and cool off a bit. T-Rob had ventured off to take some pictures, when we heard him yelling again. We ran up and saw Rob and Will and Cameron at the top of the canyon. We stayed where we were and waited for them to get down. When they got down, they all were sunburned and salty from all the sweat. We were glad to see them and we headed down to the creek in the middle of the canyon for a little swim. We swam around a bit and cooled off. It was then that we saw the only other people we saw while we were backpacking. Four potheads from UNT... figures... they informed us to give them a holler if we wanted to smoke a bowl. I then asked them who they were voting for which resulted in four dead potheads (A-tone would be proud). We buried them and headed off. We slept the second night at the base of the canyon where we all got some great sleep. Sunday morning we woke up and headed back to the wagon. We got there around 10:00 AM and decided to go see the famous "Lighthouse" rock formation which was about a 6 mile hike. We did the hike and took some great pictures. After that we headed back to the wagon to begin the trip back, if it even could begin. We checked the fluid and found metal chunks in the transmission fluid which meant that the transmission was grinding itself up...bad. We headed out with our fingers crossed, hoping for the best and expecting the worst. We got all the way back to where I-30 intersects I-35 before encountering any problems other than having to push the car in reverse if we wanted to go backwards. While trying to pass a guy on the entrance ramp to 30, I stripped 3rd and 4th gear, so 1st and 2nd were all that remained. This resulted in our traveling the remaining 5 miles in 2nd gear on the shoulder of the highway, not to mention the taillights were broken as well as the dashboard lights. So we limped in at about 15 mph running about 45000 Rpm in 2nd gear. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Things I learned on the trip:

1. Never give up if the war wagon is involved

2. Texas really is as awesome as we say it is

3. Don't fall in a cactus

4. Destroy all democrats

5. Spare tires are overrated

6. Your body doesn't require as much food as you think, but it requires more water than you think

7. Texas Rocks