Alibates Flint Quarry

A Gay Ol' Time

The Alibates Flint Quarry National Monument bore no resemblance to the Slate Rock and Gravel company that employed Fred Flinstone. There were no bronto-cranes or proto-bird whistles ending the shift. We did not bring along our sabretooth tiger family pet, nor dine on dino-ribs. And Evan most certainly did not have a “gay ol’ time.” He was thirteen and had hit the point where family vacations to the middle of nowhere, about forty-five minutes north of Amarillo, TX, were not at the top of his list of things to do.

I went through a similar phase when I was a teen. One time in particular I decided out of utter embarrassment that I did not want to participate in whatever activity the family was doing and opted to stay in the car. I don’t believe it was in the desert like Alibates, but it was quite steamy. While the windows were cracked as if I was a dog left in a car at the WalMart parking lot, my stubborn nature refused to admit that I should have gone into the air-conditioned establishment, so by the time my parents and sister returned my shirt was quite soaked with sweat. You would think that this experience would have led to some sympathy for Evan, but he was rather annoying and it is the nature of adulthood to forget our youthful stupidity.

In Evan’s defense the Alibates Flint Quarry is not one of the more amazing National Park Service sites. There was a nice visitor center where we watched a ranger shape a piece of flint into an arrowhead and a nature trail just outside the door that featured some cactus flowers, but that was about it. Apparently, there is evidence of human habitation dating back to the Clovis people more than 13,000 years ago, but this was more of a quick stop and get a Junior Ranger Badge kind of park . We were on our way to Big Bend, Guadalupe, Carlsbad, and White Sands. Oddly, I get a sense of guilt if we do not spend some time in the park, so we decided to take a couple small hikes. If Evan, was more versed in the oeuvre of Hanna and Barbera, then he would have let loose with a drippingly sarcastic

“yabba

dabba

doo.”

However, he just made his disapproval known by grumbling under his breath, refusing to walk with us, and kicking rocks. We did not let him just sit in the car and bake. Perhaps it was my subconscious memory twisting up from the deep of my medulla or oblongata and wreaking havoc on Evan’s free will. Or, as often is the case, I was channeling the patron saint of family vacations, Clark W. Griswold, when he spoke from on high firmly planted in the driver’s seat of the family truxster, “We're all gonna have so much fuckin' fun we'll need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles! You'll be whistling Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah out of your assholes!!!” (National Lampoon’s Vacation Chap. 4 Verse 5)

He exited the car and found a boulder to plop his butt on.

"If you are going to sit there without us, then you better watch for snakes," Colette warned. It was probably an attempt to manipulate him, but we had also seen numerous signs warning visitors to watch for rattlesnakes.

"I don't care," Evan shouted with another kick of the rocks.

Told you it was a Truxster.

In Evan's mind this casual act of perambulation was the Bataan Death March of family vacations, but it was literally only a four hundred yard trek up a hill to get a view of the valley. We had already completed the Junior Ranger activity book, but if we hadn’t this is the type of stroll that is required to complete National Park Bingo in which young applicants cross off examples of the local flora and fauna on a bingo card on page four of the booklet. This small hike would have provided ample examples, and the near death experience that was to occur shortly may have fallen short of a Purple Heart worthiness, but was surely meritorious enough to earn the plastic ranger badge pinned to his Beastie Boys t-shirt.

That badge was certainly no badge of courage, and was not going to protect Evan from what came next. Colette and I were walking a few yards ahead admiring cactus flowers and the vista that was slowly revealing itself as we reached the plateau. I was wearing a GoPro camera that we had picked up at the Goodwill store a couple of months before vacation, though I wasn’t sure what I was going to film. Evan had left his perch on the rocks and was shuffling along well behind us. We started to head back when we heard a piercing shriek. Evan was screaming and fleeing back down the hill towards the Truxter as fast as he could along the loose gravel and outcroppings of rocks. He was pumping his legs up and down so hard I could hear the rapid beat of the tom-tom drum indicating that Fred had just informed Barney that it was time to skedaddle. A flicker of movement caught my eye on the trail that Evan had just vacated. A rapidly undulating red line was chasing after a lizard running for his life on two legs. I assumed that the red line was a Western coachwhip, sometimes called a red racer, because we had seen one earlier on the road into the park and had queried the ranger. A few seconds later they came racing back in the opposite direction.

The coach whip is one of the fastest snakes reaching speeds of up to four miles per hour, and folklore claims that they will chase humans. This is not true, but their ridiculous speed is startling, and if you are like Evan, then you assume that you are the target of their attack. The poor reptilian gentleman running on his hind legs was most likely a collared lizard and is about three times faster than the snake, so he most likely survived this encounter which is more than I can say about Evan’s emotional well being.

Colette is heard on the video saying, “maybe that will teach him a lesson.”

We are all about natural consequences and this was about as natural as they come. When we finally caught up with him at the Truxster, he was perched on the bumper of the car to avoid and further contact with terrestrial carnivores much like a woman in a black and white movie scales a kitchen chair to avoid a mouse. It seemed that the only lesson that he had learned is that making contact with the ground was dangerous.

His immediate reaction was anger, shame, and constant pleading. "I wanna go hoooooome!"

We did leave the park and head through Amarillo to the Cadillac Ranch where he was much happier to pick up a few abandoned cans of spray paint and leave his mark on the upturned motor vehicles. Later on this trip we did encounter wild life again. This time it was in Big Bend National Park and detailed in this essay, but Evan was yet again a stereotypical teen and so engrossed in his phone that he barely noticed the jack rabbit that exploded on the grill of our car.

Video evidence of the screaming and subsequent run.

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