ah where to start. Today marked the end of the First Annual Two-Thirds-of-My-Family Motorcycle Road Trip to Big Bend Bonanza. Pretty long title, I know, but when Aimee (sister) gets her motorcycle, her and La (other sister) can allow the dropping of three of the words.. just another reason for Joey to concede. It was a little trying on the arse, but for the most part, I'd do it again starting tomorrow. It was about 500 miles one way, but Team: Parents got a flat just outside of Fort Stockton. The nearest Harley shop was ONE HUNDRED MILES AWAY (one way). The second can of fix-a-flat they tried to use in their ambitious one hundred mile limp was no match for the damage done to the inner tube apparently, and so we called for a tow truck, and then we waited.. in the middle of the desert for two hours. It really wasn't that bad, we are pretty good at entertaining ourselves, or making fun of our mother, whichever comes first. She's a good sport. My dad and Michael (brother) found this really long metal pole they wanted to joust other motorcyclers with. It's too bad that the only camera we had wouldn't work, because the photos could have really helped you visualize the daunting nature of their proposed endeavor. Needless to say, we ended up staying in Odessa that night. A lot of other stuff happened, but I mean, it's almost midnight and I could type like this all night at this point. We stopped at Fort Davis; Balmorhea (only had enough time to jump in in my clothes, and jump back out); Marfa for gas; Presidio; Terlingua and Lajitas were actually pretty neat little towns to drive through. We didn't get to our campsite in Big Bend until 9:30. It was already getting cool in the basin, and poor Michael only had a sheet to sleep with.. he says he only got 2 hours of sleep (read: he froze his ass off). I didn't know about this until about 4am when he got up to close the roof and door flaps of the tent; I was borderline sweating in my mummy bag, and the awkward shape is a little, well, awkward to share with a second person, but I gave him a "wing" of it. Too little too late, I bet. I hate being too cold to fall asleep when I'm camping. Even when I'm not camping at that.

The next day would be hot as **** though. As soon as we left the basin, I'm pretty sure the temperature rose 152 degrees. It's just that there is no shade, and the sun is a bastard, you have to cover up under those death rays. I can't remember what it was, but we did something that was really hot. Then we rode over to a really short trail that led to the hot springs. I'm a big fan of natural hot springs, but I'm pretty sure the air outside was warmer than the spring. It was kind of a disappointing site too- really muddy knee deep rapids passing over an eight inch circle of clear water. There were two guys taking photos of the area (from England or Australia or something like that), and dad asked if they found the springs yet? "Nope, not yet" the one said, and he was standing right over it taking it's picture. Oh and there were petroglyphs in the side of the cliffs all over the place too, those were neat to come across. After that we rode over to Boquillas Canyon where we took a .5 mile trail to the pseudo-summit. Dad and Michael threw rocks at Mexico, I couldn't quite get mine to clear the river (Rio Grande, by the way). I don't know why we tend to have that compulsion to throw rocks when we're near water. It's the simpler things eh. We left the park after that, we were originally going to camp by Amistad Lake, but we didn't make it there until about 9:00pm, and Team: Parents were not up to the challenge.

and today we rode all day. Michael wins the MVP award. Well done, sir.

I think I'm going to be able to see Evan this summer after all. It is really and truly about that time again. Rachel is flying in tomorrow night though!! It's her first time to Texas, and she'll be here until Friday. Very excited about that.