Bald Eagles and Textbook-free History

He flew within ten feet of our heads with a seven foot wing span and soft brown feathers so close I could see them individually.
“A bald eagle!” shouted Daniel, my son’s friend. “So close we could touch him!”
As that grand bird flew over us, he studied me so deliberately that I would have sworn he had a soul.
Thus began William and Daniel’s Goliad adventure. We actually title our road trips; do I sound like a cruise director?
So far, my strategy is working, though. What strategy? I call it an adventure and they believe that it is.
There’s something about traveling with two almost grown-up young men that makes me feel insecure, middle-aged and frumpy. I am desperate enough to use any tactics I can think of to make it fun for them.
I just know the day is quickly approaching when my son will realize that I’ve scarred him for life. In the meantime, I’m making the most of the last precious drops of his boyhood. One bonus for me is that he attracts terrific friends and they still treat me like one of their buddies.
One of my goals this year is to teach him and his adventurous friends as much Texas history as possible without ever cracking a textbook.
It’s surprisingly cheap and easy to do. Here’s my list of hints:
-Set the boundaries before you leave home. I find it helpful when traveling with people taller and stronger than me to make it clear that I am the boss. This is only because for now I am the only one with a driver’s license, you understand.
-Keep it simple. What is it about camping that brings out the pack rat in my son? I finally had to tell him that he could bring anything he could carry in one back pack. That included the tent.
-Put boys in charge of the campfire. I have found that if there is fire involved a boy will tolerate any amount of history.
-Correlating principle: Trust them with a lighter. I’m not saying this is a good idea. I am only saying that it gives a whole new meaning to the word adventure.
-Texas Parks and Wildlife’s website makes navigating our state parks super-friendly. Their park staffs are helpful and professional in an era when service is rare.
As if all nature was conspiring to help me out, the one full day we had at the camp site dawned glorious and sun-drenched. Of course, the coffee never boiled, but that is a different story.
Here’s a special shout-out to Burnie Cowan of Bastrop whom we met on the way to Goliad in a refurbished bank building complete with iron safes and scroll-worked teller windows from the 1800s which now serves as the Bastrop Visitor’s Center. Thanks, Burnie, for sharing your time and knowledge with us and for conspiring with a frumpy mom to make history an adventure.

Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, travels Texas with adventurous folks when she is not home in beautiful East Texas. She welcomes all comments at CaeKrafve2@aol.com.