E. Rocks
Yali enters my room that morning in a mild tornado rage... “My tablet broke! The screen's all cracked!” // “Uh oh... what happened this time?” // “I was just... I was spinning it on my finger you know, like how you do with a basketball?” … however he temporarily forgets about this recent casualty to model the two types of Harry Potter eyeglasses Oxbear has recently created for him... one 3D printed and one crafted from an old clothes hanger...
The kids have been waiting for my verdict since yesterday... will today be a field trip or no? … walk out to find Yali providing free wizarding classes for Patience dressed in his Gryffindor robes attacking each other with magic wands to the HP soundtrack... “Yes, we can go to Elephant Rocks today...” // “YAY!” // Yali begins whacking an empty cookie box with both 3D printed wizards wands in a display of great excitement...
An hour later we're driving south for our 6th annual visit... and this time Yali has also invited Patience... (Puck is not interested.... he's busy nerdily laughing over “command line scripts” with Oxbear back home)...
Heliotrope splashes of redbud feathered liberally through post-wintry woods... through the country under sun and cloud over red clay and slate-blue gravel and pink granite... as Yali and Patience discuss topics such as what ingredients are needed for “fake blood” and trampoline backflips... then nearly an hour and forty minutes of road later Patience finally breaks restraint to ask (six minutes before arrival)... “Are we there yet?”
Elephant Rocks is a little popular today... we quickly press over rocks deeper into the words... Patience rambling after Yali up and down ice-pressed boulders... yesterday's cold rain popping through ancient forest layers, bright mosses and fresh plants...
After awhile we find what seems to be an old root cellar tangled up with green thorns built of pink granite blocks... a few old broken jars inside it... we'd stay longer but Yali finds a lone star tick on Patience and all exploration is fully halted... he has no interest in experiencing tick disease medication again...
Back on trodden paths once more we pause to watch a woodpecker rattling through the limb of a dead tree... a pack of college boys noisily leaps past us boulder-to-boulder, loudly discussing airsofting and the French and Indian War...
Up on the top of it all, rising above wooded hills and valley are the most giant of the rocks carved over with names a hundred, nearly two hundred years old... we walk under full sun there for awhile...
Then the descent through rocky labyrinth... “Mom!” Patience calls for me, pointing dramatically to one particular boulder... “This one looks like a butt cheek!” … (this girl clearly has brothers)...
It's time to go... and it's time for ice cream... stop at the Bonne Terre Dairy Queen as we always do for chicken strips baskets and blizzards for the kids... and Yali's blizzard spilling in a thick sludge down the seat... before the warm sleepy drive home...
For grins : partial Googling record of March...
- What is a Native American drone flute?
- When was the Taiping Rebellion?
- What color is puce?
- Images of Macaroni penguin
- Where did the phrase “the back of beyond” come from?
- How many Catholic schools are there in St. Louis?
- Iditarod name origin
- Weight of largest baby ever born
- When was ancient Babylon rediscovered?
- Are there bears in New York?
- Images of Red Basker dragonfly
- Joni Eareckson Tada's age
- Is Tina Fey Greek Orthodox?
- The word “brownie” in Spanish (doesn't work; translates to Spanish word for “elf” instead)
- Are there snakes in Alaska?
- How to fold dollar bill into origami butterfly
- Do boa constrictors have fangs?
- Origin of “the witching hour”
- Why was influenza so much worse in the 19th century?
- Which U.S. President ordered 1200 Cuban cigars hours before the country was closed?
- What year did Johnny Cash die?
- Tutorial on Amish creamed lettuce