Carlton enjoying a break while hiking in Oklahoma

We found a relatively secluded camping spot right on the river, though it had seen some heavy use that summer and there was trash everywhere. I discussed littering and the evils of such with Carlton as we picked up our site a bit and he was really engaged without any prompting from me about how bad it was for the previous occupants to have made such a mess. I was so proud of him. While setting up I decided that I would teach my son how to build a proper campfire and the difference between a campfire and a cooking fire. I would like to say that this was my plan from the start, but that would gloss over the fact that I came wholly unprepared in the stove department. In light of world events, it is now against airline regulations to bring any flammable compressed gas aboard aircraft, so I had to leave the fuel canisters for my hiking stove at home, thinking that I would be able to buy one anywhere. I screwed around and didn’t pick one up in Little Rock, where I flew into and staged the trip from. We drove by a couple of places that carried compressed Isopropane canisters on the way to Nana’s, but again I figured that I would just get one somewhere else. Nope, none to be had anywhere on the road to or in the vicinity of Beaver’s Bend. I improvised, made a Dakota fire hole, and used my logistical screw-up as a lesson for Carlton. Hopefully, he will remember it as his first lesson in building a proper campfire fire and not, ‘My Dad forgot something really important…’

For the following two days we swam in the river, canoed, fished, hiked, and camped in style. There were s'mores and hot cocoa at night. Camp fires that burned bright orange as we sat beside them and glowed a soft amber later as we played go-fish in the tent at night before bed. I loved canoeing with Carlton, showing him how to handle a paddle and guide the boat. There was a small ripply section of water that in truth was not a pimple of a Class II rapids ass, but it was exciting to “shoot” through with my son. He liked the fast water as well and on the other side of our whitewater run was a deep pool where someone had rigged a long rope swing. We paddled in circles and watched as a group of teens clamoured up the mud and rock bank, grabbed the knotted end of the rope, backed up the hill behind them, and took a running leap into the air before flying off the end of the rope. Sometimes gracefully leaping at the zenith of the swing and maybe doing a back flip into the cool water. Mostly though, some poor fat kid would hold on too long and the momentum of his own weight would tear the rope from between his knees and out of his hands as he flailed in mid-air for just a breath of a second. That kid’s entry into the water was never pretty, usually looked painful, but right back up the bank he went after pulling himself from the water. Carlton wanted to join in, but he was still just a couple of years too young. Later that night, he talked and talked about coming back to that same spot one day to swing “with the big kids.”

Quiet reflection on becoming an indian...

A bat caught in flight in side the cavern. Click on this image for a larger one.

Formations inside Blanchard Springs Cavern

Organ pipe rock formations.

Butterflies were everwhere at the springs exit from the cave system.

The swimming hole at the Blanchard Springs Camp was absolutely the best one that I have ever been to. It was walking distance from camp. The water ran clear and clean and warm. It was edged by a white pebble beach with a plethora of flat stones to teach Carlton how to skip rocks with. No snakes were seen! There were no underwater debris that someone could get caught in and it was big enough to hold a number of groups comfortably. The only things that “could” have possibly made it better would have been free German Hefeweissen beer under a large shady cabaña, served by any one of number of members of the Swedish Bikini team who had taken a break from frolicking topless in the water. I am just saying…

Anyway, Carlton and I went swimming at least twice a day and a couple of times we swam early in the morning, in the heat of mid-day, and as the crickets started chirping at dusk. These sessions lasted for a couple of hours each and by the end of the week I was lobster red. Living in the cold north of Deutschland between the North and Baltic Seas really doesn’t afford one the ability to have a base tan. The sunscreen I lathered on every couple of hours only lessened the intensity of the burn. During one of these many swimming sessions, Carlton met two nine-year old sisters, whom he just waded up to, introduced himself, and started playing with. They took an immediate shine to him - it made a father proud. He was even invited to a smore roast at their campsite later that night. After our swim, Carlton kept reciting their camping spot number and after a discussion with the girl’s parents, we joined them all for s’mores and marshmallow roasting. The kids played together for a hour before the girl’s parents told us about a Raptor/Bird of prey film presentation and talk that was going to happen that night at an amphitheatre in the park. Carlton was all in and loved the film and talk afterward. The remainder of that night was spent in the tent playing cards and talking about Indians before my boy’s tank finally ran out of gas and he slipped into dreamland. After jotting down a few notes in my journal, I was off to sleep as well. That night, unlike our first at Blanchard Springs campground passed without incident.

Night one was a different story: Carlton was bushed and went right to sleep. I stayed up to write and go through our pictures. I heard a noise just outside the tent around midnight, lifted my head and the beam of my headlamp flashed onto three racoons ten feet from the tent looking at the food hanging up on the site-provided food storage pole. They froze when the light hit them and scampered away when I made a noise. Smugly, I thought of the pole placed in the site to keep our food off the ground and away from such varmints and went back to writing. An hour or so later as I was drifting off, I heard a different noise right by the tent, turned on the light and two of the little bastards had climbed the pole and were digging into our food. I hopped up, yelled at them and sent them scampering into the woods. The biggest of the pair was in no way hampered on his run by the box of Graham crackers that was tucked under one arm. I unzipped the tent, grabbed the food bags and locked them in the car trunk. A short time later I was again roused from REM sleep by weird noises. I could hear the little fuckers in the blackness of the woods fighting over the crackers. Man, I wanted to go ‘coon huntin’! Around 2:00 more noise. This time I was pissed and ready with a big lump of wood to throw at the furry bandits. I popped up, snapped on the light and three feet from me a skunk looked deep into my eyes. This could have ended badly, but I was spared a direct dousing. Instead the skunk got scared and ran into the woods, moments later, hisses, growls and screams filled the night. That skunk, it seems, had run into a group of ‘coons resting with bellies full of Graham crackers. They were not too happy for the company. After breaking bad on the little skunk, they must have gotten a mouthful of the foul stuff, as there was lots of running in all directions and the stench was overpowering even in the tent. I fell asleep with my face buried in my down sleeping bag. Stupid ‘coons!!

The theft of the crackers was no great loss. There was a store just up the road and we needed some more Hershey’s chocolate bar anyway. I need to say that our food for the entire two weeks was top notch. I know from first hand experience that Vienna sausage from a can and tuna salad on crackers is only cool once a trip and then only maybe. Our tucker consisted of turkey tetrazzini, real beef-chunk filled chilli, salmon, beef jerky snacks, buttery corn peanut M&Ms in our trail mix, Gatorade in our Nalgene bottles, fresh fruit, cheese, strawberry oatmeal for breakfast, summer sausage grilled in the fire, hot cocoa, fresh ground Kona coffee, biscuits with honey, and Miso soup. Carlton raved about the food each night and at one point told me that I was a better cook than his Mam-maw (maternal grandmother). I beamed at the compliment and was so glad that I would be spared in our family history the grim tales of the slop and horrific food that I forced my kids to eat. You know how things become with time; my grandchildren would hear stories about Granddaddy Talley, the camping ogre, who while in the wilderness would pull from the communal food pouch wormy bread and old shoe leather, in the middle of winter, making the little children sleep on the cold hard ground, with no shoes, no chocolate, melting yellow snow for water… My new hope is that my descendents will hear of the lemon soufflé that I whipped up a hundred miles from the nearest store and chicken fettuccine alfredo that magically appeared from the depths of my rucksack. There will be legends of an amazing korma curry and jasmine rice that I lovingly prepared on the side of a mountain and the salmon that I caught with my teeth before grilling it on a hand split fresh cedar plank. I will be Granddaddy Talley, the master chef of the mountains and the great north woods. Yes, that is the plan anyway…

Carlton, like all boys goes through stages of character play. He is currently hovering at the tail end of pirate fascination, in the midst of Indian enchantment, and at the cusp of soldier adoration. He still camps in pirate regalia, but on this trip he decided that he definitely wanted to be part Indian and have an Indian name – Little Foot was a good choice he decided “and when I get older it will be Big Foot”. I almost pied myself with hushed laughter before turning the conversation over to how arrow heads used to found while ploughing a field, Sioux lances, and Iroquois tomahawks. About tepees, buffalo hunting, and buckskin clothes – Carlton decided that he needed a whole buckskin suit with a quill vest and moccasins so that his true Indian self could come out. I can see it now, some hiker being ambushed on an Arkansas trail by a four foot tall blond Indian, brandishing a Mohawk gunstock war club, with red war paint, demanding in Tarzan-English all their candy and trail mix, before escaping back into the woods amid whooping war cries.

When I was eight or nine I was lost in the tales of the plains Indians as well and I had two uncles that fed this obsession for almost an entire summer. My uncle Selby taught me to plait rope and braid leather, useful skills that any Indian should have. He also taught me to shoot a bow and arrow and left me to wander the fields and pastures around their home with that bright red fibreglass bow in hand. I was an amazing shot from very early in my archery apprenticeship. I couldn’t hit a tree from six feet away, but I was amazing in the sense that I didn’t shoot anyone or anything of value or importance that summer. However, there were tales for years of a strange leak in the roof and upon inspection a lone arrow was found sticking out of the shingles. Someone else must have done it as I don’t remember aiming at the roof that summer…

My uncle JA regaled me with tales of field-found arrowheads and spear points from his youth. He showed me what flint looked like and chipped off a piece that was sort of triangular in shape and pointy. I had plans to lash it to one of Uncle Selby’s arrows and do some deer hunting one day. Toward the end of that summer, JA gave me a small white arrowhead that was napped out of a hunk of milky quartz at some point long past by what was probably a member of the Caddo Indian Tribe that once inhabited the Red River Basin. JA had a display case full of heads that he had found as a boy and gave me that one. I treasured it and still keep it with the other odd bits of treasures treasure from my childhood. In addition to learning a great deal about Indians that summer from Uncle JA, I also learned that one should not stand over a fresh cow-pie and shoot it with an air rifle – one gets covered in specks of poo. And I learned that one shouldn’t touch red hot iron from a job site even if it does look like a cool steel arrowhead - one gets a lifelong scar on their thumb.

Carlton was just a little too young for a bow, but he was old enough for some of the other Indian accruements. After teaching him how to braid three strands of cord and showing him how Indians made rope out of the braids, I made him a headband by plaiting eight cords in a decorative flat band and tucked a turkey feather into it that he had found on a hiking trail. After the headband, I took a long flat rock that I found near our second swimming hole, split a branch and made him a small stone tomahawk. He was so proud of his Indian gear that after we had a little talk about not hitting anything or anyone with the hawk, he carried it around with him for almost the entire second half of our trip, even wearing the headband and carrying the hawk to the marshmallow roast that we attended. The ladies dug his gear and he strutted with it a little. The thought of my miniature pale version of Crazy Horse brings a huge smile to my face as I write this and will continue to do so for years and years to come.

I could not have wanted more from our trip together. We laughed and sang and made discoveries and talked and talked. I will treasure those days spent swimming, "fishing," camping, and caving for the remainder of my life. I do wish that my daughter would have come along to share the fun times, but we will have our own good time later. I am just grateful for any day that I get to spend with my children and I am beyond words when those days are like the ones spent with Carlton during the summer camping trip of 2007.