"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds." - Edward Abbey

We slept deeply that first night - perhaps not so much from comfort but from exhaustion.

The trailer's little air conditioner rambled endlessly, and managed to keep us at a about 78 degrees but no cooler, a byproduct of the south-Texas heat and humidity.

Not to say that we were uncomfortable: the RV experience is somewhere between camping and staying in a motel. Space is limited, you're never quite as warm or quite as cool as you'd like to be. The showers aren't as long...but they are THERE.

For years I rejected the thought outright.

An old boy scout, my notion had traditionally been that camping should be roughing it.

If you're not hot during the day and cold at night and dirty all the time, if you don't wake up and stretch with stiffness and pain in your joints, if you don't ever have to make the uncomfortable midnight decision to climb out of your bag in the dark and cold to empty your bladder, then you didn't get your moneys worth.

Katherine, enjoying all (some) of the comforts of home.

Age and family have a way of softening a man's conviction for such things though, and if having what is equivalent to the amenities of my first apartment bounding along behind the truck helps to get my children out to see the stars at night, and to walk with nature a bit more often - then I'll do it. I'll compromise.

Today, even Aria didn't wake with the dawn though.

I crawled out of bed first, when the sun was already high in the sky, and brewed a pot of coffee. The children heard the rumble of the coffee pot and stumbled out from their bunk-beds, sleep in their eyes and hunger in their bellies. Katherine wasn't far after.

We opted not to fire up the little stove and further heat things up - breakfast was toast and yogurt.

BREAKFAST!!

By 10:30 we'd broken camp and were on the road, stretching out over US 90. It was remarkably and beautifully desolate. A car or truck might pass us every 30 miles or so, but other than that, we had the highway entirely to ourselves.

90 West wound us around southern Texas, skirting the Mexican border. Just outside the Amistad Reservoir we were ushered into a Border Patrol checkpoint.

It was a quiet, quick interaction, but one that Aria didn't quite understand. She asked about a dozen questions and I got the impression that none of the answers really made much sense to her. In reality they didn't make much sense to me either.

Children have no concept of borders. The idea of an imaginary boundary you're not allowed to cross without someone's approval just doesn't make sense to them - their lives are all about free movement, coming and going as they please.

It's one of the beautiful points of youth and innocence, and we could all learn a bit from it.

As we rode west, the climb was more aggressive than the previous day had been - semi-arid mesquite and low shrubs fell away, and were replaced by sandstone and Joshua tree, their fronds outstretched toward the heavens.

The highway slipped past towns with populations smaller than the class size of a rural elementary school, through canyons both natural and artificial, past abandoned trailer parks and fueling stations festooned with weather-worn dinosaurs - vestiges of the once busy national highway, before the interstate stole a majority of it's traffic.

No more than 60 miles out, Ian made his textbook proclamation "I HAVE TO POOOOOOP!"

With no small town in sight, we didn't know quite what to do with this revelation - until we realized we were pulling a mobile bathroom behind us....

And that is how we ended up parked, with the slide-out fully extended, at the entrance to a dusty old cattle ranch in rural West Texas - miles from any hookup.

Perhaps a hidden benefit of the trailer: a pitstop is where a pitstop needs to be....

Here, the heat was equivalent in volume - but different in form.

It was the heat from my childhood. Oppressive and scorching in direct sunlight, but even a brief foray into the shade could provide an inordinate amount of relief.

The sweat on your brow dries instantly, and you're cool.

Here, the body worked the way it was supposed to work.

It was a welcome respite.

Notice how Ian always has the same reaction to food?
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

After a short refueling stop, both for the Titan and the kids, we meandered into our home for the evening - the Tumble In in Marfa, TX.

A dusty little cow town turned art-infused miniature hippie-hub, Marfa is everything I love about the west.

Twelve of these - arranged in a grand arch, not far from our campsite

Each is adorned with a similar but distinct symbol.

Art installation? Alien Artifact? Government Mind Control Tower?

- You Decide -

It's remote, textured, and categorically weird.

Like any good desert town it's denizens are a mesh of different backgrounds and personalities, scratching out a living from hard, parched soil like the desert fauna that surrounds them.

I could get used to life here. I could see myself blending into the scenery, and becoming part of it...

Our campsite at the Tumble In - Check out that western sky!

In the evening, we ventured into town and decided to eat at one of the open restaurants.

A worn old single floor building with a sign blowing in the breeze marking it as the Lost Horse Saloon was open, with only patio seating.

A gaunt older man in a cowboy hat and ropers tended to the place - wiping down tables, watering flowers and generally milling about.

Katherine asked if a table in the shade was occupied, and he answered with a curt but polite "A'yup"

Then he looked down at the children towing behind and smiled, "But y'all are welcome to share the table if you'd like"

The man was almost a caricature of the western cowboy. Tall and lean with a leathery, cracked, weather-worn skin. A black eye-patch dangled over his right eye. He seldom spoke, and it was several minutes before I thought to introduce myself.

Three and Seven - and they're already dancing in saloons...
What sort of parent am I?

Quiet, but remarkably polite he pulled tobacco from an old pouch and rolled a cigarette, introducing himself simply as Ty. It wasn't until later in the evening that someone else pointed out that he owned the place.

His old dog meandered about the property, taking particular interest in the children as they danced to the the rolling stones, and we drank cold beer out of glass bottles.

Occasionally, I'd look at the kids and catch them playing with an old mechanical adding-machine he had propped up in a corner next to the outdoor bar, presumably as decoration but maybe just because there was nowhere else to put it. I scolded them, but he was quick to correct me.

"I wouldn't worry 'bout them boss. They won't hurt it near as much as the drunks do"

Mostly, we sat in silence just enjoying the ambiance, and occasionally, I'd catch the vestige of a smile or a laugh crack in the corner of his mouth when he'd watch them. Cowboys love children - or so I've been told.

After dinner we took a few moments to marvel at the west Texas sunset, and mill about our campground - looking at the art sculpture nearby and generally taking in all the glorious weirdness.

When the sun went down we set out back eastward to sit at a viewing area for the fabled "Marfa Lights" - a series of yet unexplained orbs that glow in the desert distance and dance in the night sky just above the ground.

As the sun melted down over the western horizon, the desert skies opened up with a multitude of brilliant stars. We were excited for the children to see them, they'd never seen stars like this before.

We marveled, our necks craned upward, in the cool night air until the kids finally surrendered to sleep in their camp chairs, and we wound our way back to the Tumble In to get them bedded down.

Katherine and I spent a bit more time chatting with our neighbors and looking up at the night sky, before we retired for the evening.

Here, tonight, it was cool enough that we left the air conditioner off and the windows open, lulled to sleep by the soft desert wind, the chirp of the cricket, and the freight trains rolling past town with their rhythmic clatter and lonesome whistle.