Woke up in Guadalupe Mts. National Park to a wind smashing our tarp around with shotgun blasts. Fell asleep and awoke again. And again. And again. And again. You get the idea. Each time, I jumped into Peb's arms like a small child in a thunderstorm, the adrenaline flowing for a few minutes each time and fading only as my foggy head realized it was only wind, not in fact the guerrilla war it seemed to be. Worn out by morning, we still considered taking a hike in this lonely, gorgeous country. Until the hail began. With a simple eyebrow raising toward each other, we got back in the car and began to flee the area for milder climes.Only 4 hours away was a reputed treasure we aimed for: Monahans Sandhills State Park. We were told that people say it's really cool, though our direct source had never been there. All we knew was that it was lower ground, so likely to be warmer, and that it was all sand dunes. The foreignness of this environment seemed worth a try.
The sunny day had our hopes up. The warmth was a blessing. We were happy about all this, but most amazed that we were going to get to our camping destination in mid-afternoon. I do believe this is worse odds for us than playing scratch tickets. So we'd get to play in the sun, surf down the dunes, and generally relax for a day. Except it wasn't exactly that simple when we got there.
First off, we see the entrance tantalizingly close and can't reach it. There's a railroad crossing between us and the park, lights blinking, guards down. No train. Still blinking and blocking our way 10 minutes later with no sign of train, Peb gets back in the car and says, "we can make it through. There's no train. I can see way up there that they're working on a car or something." Well, I say no at first. That's dangerous.
What if we suddenly stall on the tracks and the train's really coming? He looks at me with this simple head shake that says "Jesus, girl, you are way too paranoid." So I realize that after 3000 miles, we have not yet suddenly stalled while driving, so it will probably be okay. I get out and watch the tracks while he drives around the gates. We're in! Okay then, let's go see this place!
As we park, we see another truck pull up. We wonder how long this one will wait. Not too long, or... not long enough? The truck mimics our motions and comes up to the visitor's center as well. Except it's not just any truck. It's the official Fish and Game Warden. Now you probably can guess what I'm thinking, after the last 18 days of things going not quite right. And I'm just hoping he didn't notice us, though we have clearly just arrived by the ticking of the cooling engine and the fact that we are just paying our entry fee. So when he comes in the office and stands behind us, loaded with guns and an official attitude, the guilt oozed out of my forehead like a scarlet letter.
We're thinking "man, we are so busted. And as soon as we pay our tickets, he's gonna ask, 'folks, can I talk with you guys for a minute?'" But we try to act normally, just in case. The officer goes behind the desk and starts asking for names from the other lady. He asks "what did they write on their paper?" just as I'm handing our information paper to the clerk. I look, trying to act cool, but really wondering just how much trouble we're in. He then says to me sternly, "we're just doing some business here" with a tone that firmly says "stay out of it." I do.
We pay, we wander the museum until he leaves, and walk out ourselves, relieved that somehow we slipped under the radar, or weren't as interesting as the other guy he's looking for anyway. Whew!
Off to the campsite. The wind has followed us. We tried to relax for a minute. Key word: tried. The wind blew so strongly that we sat on the lee side of the dune near our site and pretended it was habitable for about 5 minutes until we realized we needed some shelter even to relax. The wind was sustained at about 25-30 knots, with gusts up to 50. And it was getting stronger. There was no moment without wind. Not one single second.
We struggled to string up a tarp around the shade structure already set in the ground. Just getting the tarp over the line was like children holding on to the mainsail of the Pinta in a Nor'Easter. I was so frustrated that I could only think one thing to keep me sane: when this is over, I will find this to have been an interesting adventure.
I tried to pull the tarp under the picnic table legs, and to do so, at one point, I crawled under the table. It was actually better
under there, and I thought it would be a good idea to just stay under the table. But of course this is a ridiculous idea, right? So I drop it and try to stay out of the way and shut up so as to not ruin the day more with my bitching. What I forgot in that maelstrom is that Peb is shelter master. I went to the bathroom and found myself daydreaming of all the places I could sleep: rolled up like a burrito in a tarp, in the car, or in the restroom. Yes! I could manage now because I could go lay down in a shower in the restroom later. We were the only people there not in an RV, so I knew there wouldn't be much in the way of restroom activity during the night. With a plan and a more positive attitude, I returned to our site.
When I got there, Peb had fully prepared our hovel. I almost didn't see him, but he called out for me to come on in. This was a shout mostly lost in the wind, and a hand reaching out from the bunker at an unlikely height: knee level. I had to look twice to see where he was: under the table. Our house for the night used the advantages of the same nature that was giving us free facials, the movement of the sand. He dug down and used the sand to build up walls. He took every bag we had in the car and made walls. The tarp covered two walls and a ceiling of our picnic table hut. I got in and relaxed. This was actually relatively comfy.
For about an hour, we continued to plug holes with whatever we had. A pair of sneakers in this one, his fanny pack on that one. Slowly but surely the raining sand had only a few inlets and we began to talk again more than just shouting directions inaudible more than 5 feet away. We were protected.
Peb said, "well, the wind will stop eventually. It may be an hour or a week, but it will stop at some point." This doesn't sound funny now, but at the time, it was hilarious. That we were actually able to glean some hope from the idea that it would stop someday was far better than the gloom that we would be stuck in this forever.
When the sun went down, we extracted ourselves from the 5'x4' safe spot to enjoy the low light on the dunes. The wind had in fact begun to relax, now down to 30 knot gusts and 10-15 knot sustained. The sand hitting skin was annoying now, but not outright painful.
We climbed up on the sandhills, stood in awe of this massive landscape of soft pink sand. Peb
ran down a sheer edge and I followed. Running in sand this deep and loose is like having a fight in a dream, where it seems you should be moving much faster than you actually are. We attempted to throw the frisbee, but the physics of a flying disk in this wind made every throw a crap shot, and every attempt to catch it meant a long walk in some random direction. But it cheered us up knowing when we had had enough, we had a spot to escape to.
When we retreated to camp, we determined it was the best campsite under a picnic table we'd ever had.
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