“Sand in Texas?” I shake my head. The possible thought of the horrific yet pretty colored grit in my ears, hair, toes and other places sand should not be; no longer an expensive trip that could only be dreamt of. “And it’s a lake with a volleyball court, and fishing for your dad,” It all just sounded too good to be true for my exquisitely large family of 7 going on 8, “There’s camping grounds and a trail and soccer fields.” I’m puzzled at the extra ordinariness of the place. “But what’s the catch?” I ask my mother. She shakes her head and smiles smugly, “No catch, cost, or anything just a nice vacation for the last days of summer.” I squint my eyes and glare at the actual thought of having a real vacation. “Where is this “so called” lake/beach at though?” I sit knowingly waiting for the made up lakes destination. “It’s called Little Elm, Texas.” She says none hesitantly “Mm.” I say just staring at her. “Never heard of it.” I shrug going to dig back under my nails.
She looks at me and goes to get her phone to show me the destination of this “Little Elm Lake” and low and behold it’s a real place. An actual legit place with real people and schools and stores and so forth. I cannot believe it, I’m stunned “Sounds good?” my mom asks and I can only nod in shock “Sounds good.” I mumble walking/running off to go and alert the clan.
“So how far is it from now?” My little sister of 7 years asks, after now being aware of the fact that we were in Little Elm now. “Not much farther.” We the Clan grumble in exasperation for what feels like the umpteenth time, and we finally round a bend and there it is.
My eyes grow big, my heart stops beating in its usual rhythm; now 4 beats a second and I am amazed at the sheer… ugliness of the place. The park was under construction and could not be played on, the land on which it was set on steeply dropped as if years of erosion had caught up with it. Then the snack bar that was positioned at the top of the grounds, was entirely too small for the 30 occupants under the shed like building, the camp grounds where in a secluded area in which it appeared you would have quite a few encounters with the wild. Not my forte. Then there was also the “Soccer field” a wide field with one goal down on the far end of the field. The only promising things about the lake seemed to be the fishing area, the sand, the trail and the volleyball court. There were 2 courts; one sat along the side of the snack shack and lake it had 8 dispersed courts to play volleyball on, then the other was along the side of the park with 2 courts to play on. The trail was simple yet in-depth in wounded through the lightly wooded area and branched through a neighborhood and into a more deeply wooded area. The best part though, was no matter how deep you got into the woods, there was no rattling of the cicadas, there was no annoying chirping of the birds, or no pessimistic mosquitos buzzing about waiting for the perfect time to land and suck the blood out of your legs and arms leaving itchy, red, welted, oval like bumps in its place.
The insect life was very vivid though. For the first time, I saw an actual scorpion crawling along the side walk as if it was a human person unbothered, there was caterpillars and inch-worms inching there way along the sweltering hot concrete. The breakers came in random short spurs. Despite all the imperfections of the beach, it was a very lively place to be. It was a place you would want to return to. There was many new friendly face and a new environment to be in. It subtle and serene, almost in a sense calming despite all of the shrill laughs and screams.
