The Wayfaring Wordhack

To paraphrase from The Princess Bride, There is too much; I'll sum up...about our trip to Oklahoma, that is.

For three weeks:

We rested, following the sun's rhythms pretty closely, not bothered at all by the yapping of coyotes, which is so much more melodious as it rolls down hills and creeks, echoing off oaks than is the barking and snarling of the wild dogs that run the concrete labyrinth of this city.


( Rest of the trip, this way... )

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* Has anyone else been in proximity to an armadillo? There was one funky smell in its wake, and we don't know if it was the creature itself or something it had come in contact with. It smelled like skunk and wild garlic/onions.

Night before last, I caught my first "calamar," or bigfin reef squid.  We had it for lunch yesty, just pan-seared with a bit of lemon and parsley, and it was divine.  So we went back yesty evening and caught two more.  They weren't as large as the first one, but we'll be able to stuff them.  I think I'm going to come up with a tropical recipe involving pineapples and coconut.  We'll see.

Fishing is good and relaxing, but it is being out in the mild night air, my legs in the water, wildlife all around, a gazillion stars overhead, and perfume from the sea and myriad night-blooming flowers that I particularly love.  The night I caught my big squid, there were two dolphins leaping out of the water in unison, not fifty feet from where we were.  A school of 2-3-inch long fish were being chased by something big about fifteen feet out and were leaping, too, in an attempt to escape.  When they dove back into the water, it sounded like a brief, but intense, spat of rain.  Later, when we tried fishing from a different spot, we saw a lionfish floating, fins fully extended, just a few inches below the surface.  It was like having front row seats to an aquatic ballet.  

Last night we saw a starfish inching its way across the sand at our feet.  Its back was textured and colored like sand, but it had spikes lining the outer edge of its arms.  Vibrant orange "feet" waved in protest when I picked it up to look at it. (ETA just found it in my guide.  It was a comb-star or sand star)

The only depressing thing about the evening was that I think I killed something I didn't mean to kill.  I felt a bite and started reeling in my line.  I had the brake (don't know if that is the name in English) fairly loose because that is what I read you should do when fishing squid.  Whatever it was that I caught took the slack and swam with it.  I tightened the line, but suddenly, it went taut.  Strange.  Thinking I must have been mistaken about having caught something and was indeed snagged on a rock, I undressed down to my swimsuit and grabbed my mask.  J held the pole while I followed the line out.  It stopped in a hole in the sand.  A crab, we figured.  I pulled gingerly (bkdunn that one is for you! :P).  It wouldn't budge.  I tugged a few more times on the line, not wanting to actually grab the lure and risk getting pinched by a ravenous crab.  (You guys have seen the pics.  Some of those things have claws as big as my fists.)  After some minutes, I said, Nothing for it, and pulled, REALLY hard.  

I came away with something.  The mouth of a something, I think.  (J thinks I need to specify that there were also some brains/guts? attached) So now there is a poor mouthless (brainless/gutless?) something out there, either bleeding or starving to death, and I am to blame.

I am going to ponder my culpability a while longer and then I'm going fishing.  Ware to those who value their mouths.