May 8 – “… a seven-foot tall black bear eradicator … a man-eater”

We left our house around 8:30 or so yesterday morning and headed to Waco.  At least I thought that’s where we were headed.  I think we may have sneezed when we were making the turn out of the parking lot though.  Suddenly we found ourselves one … a ferry.  Car and all.  Soooo … another adventure.

The first leg took us a few hours away.  We transitioned from beach and dunes to nothing but trees and brush.  Very thick stuff.  Amazingly enough, this place had a name that accurately reflected the terrain.  They called it The Big Thicket.  We stopped by the visitors center to get our National Parks book stamped.  What should we find inside that building?  None other than Pablo PicPossum himself.  We invited him to join us for the rest of the trip, and in fact to stay with us and meet our other family we have adopted on similar adventures.  He readily agreed, so we paid his bail and headed out.

While in the center we learned that there used to be a good population of black bears in the area.  Not so much now.  Why?  Because there are carnivorous, man-eating plants all over the place.  They even had a replica of one in the center.  It was taller than I was, and even had a replica inside it of the typical mosquitoes of the region.  Massive.  Seems the mosquitoes are immune to the evil poison of the plant’s digestive juices, so they lay eggs inside the plant.  Then when they hatch and become larvae, they feed on the bodies of other innocent insects who have strayed into harm’s way.  The resultant combination of DNA results in mosquitoes the size of small hawks.  I was ready to go hunt for one of them.

We hiked two trails in search of the elusive monster, a hybrid of the pitcher plant family … a seven-foot tall black bear eradicator … a man-eater.  We did manage to uncover the natural growth bogs where young plants are birthed and nurtured to enjoy capturing and feasting on bugs and small mammals until they are old enough to relocate and go for bigger game.  Sadly, however, these were all young.  I managed to get close enough to touch one, but I was too fast for its attempt to grab my finger.  We can mark down now that we have hiked the Big Thicket.  Have the stamp – and the pine cone - to prove it.

From there Google Siri steered us roughly in the direction of Waco … finally.  I have to confess, I started reading my Harry Potter book, and within the first hour I was dozing off.  Chris insists it was more like a stage five, full on, dream amidst the snore nap.  Guess I could have been tired.  Searching for evasive, man-eating pitcher plants can be really exhausting. 

We finally made it into Waco last night.  Met Josh and Christi and the kids at the local Mexican food place that we always go to.  And then we went to their house and crashed.  Hey, we went a long way to get here. 

Psalms 59:17 says, “O my Strength, I sing praise to you; you, O God, are my fortress, my loving God.”

Father, thank you for our safe journey and for the looks of joy we saw on the face of a certain four kiddos.  Amen.