Of Travels and Travellers

This morning, I made the drive out to the airport with my lovely friend Jane Benson in tow. Jane had arrived from Maine on Saturday, a day later than she had wanted thanks to lousy weather in New York and the vagaries of the airlines. Being the well-seasoned traveler that she is, she picked up her rental car and made her way to my door with the help of Google Earth, a few maps, and not just a little determination.

Just as Jane was landing at Austin-Bergstrom airport however, another visitor arrived at my door. Jeff had been kayaking on Lady Bird Lake in his new kayak we had found on Craigslist. He is beginning to train for 260-mile voyage down the Colorado River this fall, a trip that will take him from Austin to the Gulf of Mexico,but that's another story for another time. Thus, Saturday found him paddling the lake when he came upon some turtles. Lady Bird Lake is brimming with testudines and with spring here, it was no surprise to find them in varying sizes. What was surprising to Jeff was finding big ones eating very small ones. His first impulse was to save the closest baby turtle he saw from the jaws of a hungry grown up. He scooped up the little fella, put him in the kayak and paddled away from the feeding frenzy. Of course, once one has a turtle in one's kayak, the question becomes what to do with it? I'm guessing you can see where this is headed.

"Sharon," Jeff said excitedly on the phone. "I got you a present!"

Oh dear.

The turtle made the trip in the bow of the kayak. Jeff had wedged the boat at an angle into the back of the truck, poured in some lake water and floated the newest resident of Guadalupe Street home. Wendy had no opinion on the matter.

For Jane's visit, I was quite prepared. For a turtle, I was less so.

"Do you have a bowl it can live in?" Jeff asked, en route. I owned three, one with half a tomato in it, one with half a grapefruit in it, and my mixing bowl. It would have to do for a starter home.

"What do turtles eat?" I asked, meeting the new arrival in the parking lot. Jeff shook his head.

"I figured you would know," he replied. Oh the faith of the young in a reference librarian.

We poured a bit of the lake water into the bowl then I added the baby. Jeff found a couple sticks and picked a handful of grass. I found a couple of rocks. We made a pint-sized ecosystem of sorts and then all looked at eachother--boy, turtle, girl. Just another Saturday afternoon in Austin. I took my new companion upstairs after thanking Jeff for the gift, appreciative of his gesture but telling him I would have to return to the baby to the lake. It could spend the night and I would cater to its every turtle whim, but it belonged with its kinsmen, even if some of them were right bastards!

Alone in the apartment with my new roommate, waiting for Jane's arrival, I couldn't help but be absolutely in love with the little bugger. I transferred the living arrangements into my 9x13 baking pan so he had room to swim a distance, which he seemed keen to do, if only to be thwarted by stainless steel walls that smelled of baked chicken and gluten-free brownies. He was a red-eared slider, common to many areas of the US. Some of you will remember when turtles were the rage for pets. I think most of us have at least one turtle skeleton in our closets because the poor little things usually died from too much handling by eager hands or from neglect when they just became smelly things that didn't really do much. At one point, sale of the turtles was banned in the US because of widespread cases of salmonella in children. Turtles evidently naturally carry the wee germs and we silly kids were too busy playing with turtles to think about washing up afterwards it seems. I didn't want my little charge to face a similar fate but it nearly killed me to not just pick him up and lug him around the apartment. It's probably much in his favor that he wouldn't lick me or purr.

Jeff called to see how things were progressing and asked if I had named the baby yet. Mike was the first name that popped into my mind, god knows why, but it really didn't fit. Then I thought about where the turtle had come from, Travis County. Travis the turtle. Jeff mentioned that in Texas, people name Travis often get the nickname, Travel. Travel made me think of General Robert E. Lee's horse, Traveller. It was a perfect fit for this little refugee.

Traveller.

Those who know me well have heard countless stories of truly uncanny coincidences in my life. Jane's arrival marked another. It turned out that our animal-loving Jane, with her cats and dogs and chickens, had only been allowed one type of pet as a child growing up in New York City....turtles. She knew Traveller's kind the minute she saw him. She knew he would enjoy lettuce and raw hamburger and bless her heart, she welcomed him with instant adoration. If you had to be in exile for a respite, who could ask for a more qualified advisor speaking on your behalf.

Jane's visit was wonderful. That afternoon, we took her to Paradise to see the art show, and to Zilker Park to see where Traveller had come from. She and I drove to Hutto the next day to meet up with her friend Lisa Walker, from Freeport, who has been involved in an amazing training program that will end in certification as a dog trainer and behavior specialist with canines. Triple Crown is known world-wide for its dedication to helping troubled dogs, that would otherwise be destroyed because of their behaviors, become happy and productive pets.
http://www.triplecrowndogs.com/ Check out the website and if you live in Freeport, look up Lisa Walker when she gets back to Maine. Her stories from her time at Triple Crown are inspiring. Lisa has been involved in canine rescue for many years. She and Jane met through their love of animals and Jane currently has a dog through Lisa's rescue efforts, along with having been part of several rescue efforts herself!

While we were in Hutto, we also had to check out several of the Hutto Hippos around town. The hippo is the high school mascot and has many different stories attached to it. I can't begin to do the legend justice so I'll let you find out for yourselves. http://www.huttotx.gov/Community/History/Hippo.htm
And you thought Yarmouth was proud of clams....

We visited the Mexic Arte museum downtown http://www.mexic-artemuseum.org/
which included an exhibit of retablos, small, religious images painted by Mexican immigrants to thank God, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints for a miracle bestowed upon them during life's trials, such as illness, accidents, or the dangerous journey across the the border into the US. To have a retablo created, you would go to a member of your village or an itinerant craftsman, tell them your story, then they would create a small painting involving a scene from your story as well as writing out the basics of what precipitated your giving thanks. It was a very moving show.
There was a trip to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (which I will write about in a future blog with lots of photos) and a road trip in the Hill Country to Fredericksburg complete with breakfast tacos from Flores' Roadside Tacoria and iced tea made by a high school gal at a tiny tea room who informed us she not only had common sense but "book smarts", too! We met the first female life guard for Barton Springs pool in Austin who was now working in a natural foods store in Fredericksburg and we learned from an elderly Scandinavian lady at the Pioneer Museum that the goats we were seeing grazing in area pastures were now strictly meat goats because "the bottom had fallen out of the angora market, ok?" Oh what a grand day we had on Highway 290.

When we got back to Austin, we stopped at Central Market to pick up odds and ends for a light supper. I had self-served a partial container of guacamole to go with chips and hummus but the scale was out of stickers for pricing the weight. One of the floor managers told me the cashier could weigh it for me and punch in the item code when I got to the register so I wouldn't have to wait while he fannied about getting a roll of stickers and loading the printer. Jane and I got in line, happy with our delicious soup and hummus and fruits and chips, when the chatty lady behind us managed to drop a bottle of red wine on the cement floor. A wave of cabernet sauvignon flooded over Jane's feet but fortunately no glass did. She was unscathed, though very much smelling of the grape. Her sandals were dark and luckily did not show the stain.

With all the excitement going on, the cashier managed to charge me the full pound price for my two dollops of guacamole. I didn't notice until after she had completed the transaction. I don't usually raise a fuss over small quantites of cash but this was $9.00 for about two bucks worth of avocado. The young woman was apologetic, telling me she couldn't do the refund at her cash register but that Information Desk would happily take care of me. (Information desks....we're miracle workers, aren't we!) So Jane of the Vineyards and I made our way in search of customer service. Boy did we find it. Along the winding route, I passed the manager who had been attending to the stickerless scale. Seeing me holding my guacamole aloft, he asked if everything had worked out at the register. I said yes and no, telling him of the mix up.

"I"ll take care of this, " he said. He rang the lady at the information desk, instructed her to refund my whole nine dollars and give me the guacamole. Talk about saving money at Central Market! Few things taste better than good karma.

Jane's visit was full of fun and laughter and wonderful conversation. We had sushi with Jeff and Wendy at Silhouette and were just in time to see the millions of bats emerging from under the Congress Street bridge as they do each night, flowing in a great air river of winged movement over the Colorado, heading out into the neighborhoods of Austin in search of mosquitos. It was awesome. http://austin.about.com/cs/bats/p/bats.htm
But perhaps the most poignant event was our trip back to Lady Bird Lake to return Traveller to familiar shores.

With a belly full of raw hamburger, Traveller settled into a small deli container for the ride downtown. It was nearing dusk. The moon was almost translucent in the early evening sky. As we approached the water in the car, he pushed himself up against the side of the bowl, standing, as it were, on his hind legs. His neck was stretch out from his shell and he looked for all the world like toddler trying to get out of a playpen. I think he could smell the water. He knew he was nearing where he was supposed to be. As Jane and I scrambled down the big blocks of limestone to get to the walking path at water's edge, Traveller became more and more excited, his tiny but strong legs sliding along the plastic. Jeff had found him on the other side of the lake, but I brought him to the inlet that leads up to Barton Springs, mostly because I knew how to get there but also because it was less open. I hoped the little lad could find a spot to hide and get his bearings before going it alone again, which for turtles, happens soon after they hatch.
Jane looked on as I said my goodbyes to my tiny house guest. I lowered the dish to the water, letting the lake spill in. Traveller paused, the lake water was cooler than his room temperature water, but instinct propelled him forward. He looked so tiny, and truly he was, not much bigger than a silver dollar. So tiny compared to the world around him. I felt that pang of regret that comes with letting go of something you have loved. In one way, Traveller and I shared a common bond. Jeff had plucked both of us out of the water when our seas were stormy.

A few strokes of his little flippers and he was gone, moving beneath the algae and tree roots along the inlet's edge. Jane waved a fond farewell over Lady Bird Lake and we left.

When I got home after dropping Jane at her hotel, I went automatically to the kitchen counter where the baking pan sat, still full of water and rocks and sticks. Over the course of the evening and even into the next day, I found myself heading in to see what Traveller was up to now, only to find he wasn't there any more. It amazed me how quickly caring becomes a habitual behavior, how having another heartbeat, however small, in the same room can bring a comfort you might not realize until you know it's no longer there.

Say a prayer for all the travelers.

And pray Jeff doesn't go kayaking in crocodile waters any time soon.

"Sharon, I got you a present!"


Much love to you all.