Mexicans do camp, they just have trouble sleeping

To Chill A Mockingbird, Use a Flashlight

“Mexicans don’t camp.” I explained to my new partner when she first proposed the idea of a camping trip to Big Bend when we had about two weeks off together in the early spring. The only way she got me to warm up to the idea was having a dog accompany us. A real dog, as in large and protective. We found our Catahoula, Josh, at the animal defense league in San Antonio and he was such a grateful adoptee that he willingly stayed inside our yard even when the gate was open, for the next ten years, save for the two weeks he was dognapped and the animal communicator-dog psychic in California and a lost dog ad in the newspaper helped us find him.

It’s 18 years later and we are camping en route to New Mexico. No dog, this time. We own two large rescues, one a Border Collie and the other a Coon Hound. There’s not enough room in a moving van for those two dogs, and especially not in our little 1999 Toyota Pre-Runner with our hastily-acquired-on-Craig’s list camper top that cost us half of a hundred dollars. It just sounds a tiny bit better to say it that way.

As everyone knows Mexicans do camp. At least this one does, now. Whether they sleep while they camp is another story--This one:

Sonora Caverns campsite had plenty of space for us, and the fall of dusk came with the sounds of bleating lambs from the ranch next door, guinea hens, peacocks and turkeys that roamed around the campgrounds. A sprinkler spritzing the trees and grass that a worker set near us was the last sound I heard until around two a.m. when the happy, varied and amplified Star Wars sound effects repertoire of a mockingbird shook us awake.

I remembered a spell of sleepless nights in the early 80's when I lived with a roommate from Laredo on Magnolia Street in San Antonio. The sleepless spell was also caused by a similar songfest outside our open window. I remembered I had used a flashlight to scare away the happy little bird back then. For several nights I had to clomp down the stairs, cross the street and stand like the Liberty statue in my nightgown holding up my flashlight shining up into a tree until the singer was either confused by the immediate arrival of dawn or his ego was bruised and the singing stopped.

Camping has improved in the past 18 years. Last night all I had to do was swivel around upon our plywood and foam mattress, aim our high tech spotlight and with the precision of a hunter on safari, silence, sweet silence. For about twenty minutes after dawn and nightfall came and went again and our impassioned serenade started all over.