The Pecans

Central Texas, November, 1983.
Hiking in Texas is not easy, no matter which part of this enormous state the hiking is done. Texas has it all; majestic mountains in the Big Bend, deserts in the west, damp, deciduous forest in the east and scrub land in the interior. My friend and I was in such scrub land. We had begun our journey in Austin, and after some days we were near the Lady Bird Johnson Park Dam, outside of Fredericksburg. We were very happy with the time we were making, but then the weather changed, bringing a bitter cold with it. We had all the gear we could hope to have, but even still we found ourselves moving more slowly with the extra layers of clothing we were bundled in. My friend was from Austin and I had lived in the state two years, but neither of us had experienced such cold here. We were very pleased when we saw that we were coming up on the Park, especially since evening was approaching; we had just enough time to set up camp before darkness fell.
Lady Bird Johnson Park Dam is along a bend in the Colorado River, and without discussion we made our way to a campsite for tents near the water. We always set up our tent first, before anything else, and we wasted no time, what with the sunset quickly approaching. We had the old-fashioned kind of tent that needed to be staked to the ground, and it was then that we realized our mistake – the ground was frozen. Even if we could have forced a stake into the ground, we did not have the protection needed to sleep on ice. We hurriedly packed up the tent and left the park.
We walked for a ways, until we could no longer see the river, and found a place to pitch the tent. To our surprise, the ground was just as frozen here as it was next to the water. In the light of dusk we repacked, saddened that we would have no day light by which to prepare our evening meal, we had no choice but to continue on. We did this a few more times, each time finding the ground just as frozen as it was when we were next to the river. I cannot say how long we walked, attempting to escape what was quickly becoming for us a frozen hell. We had walked all day with our backpacks and we had been tired and hungry when we had first arrived, now we were exhausted and starving. Finally we decided to give up. We would find our later that we were in a bend in the Colorado, in effect creating a frozen lake through out the park.
We found a couple trees to tie the tent to, and used our gear to secure the flaps to the cold ground. Then we took our coats and every scrap of clothing we had and put them under us with our sleeping bags and ground covers. We ate a cold meal and went to sleep. We actually did sleep for a while, we were so tired, but only about an hour. That is how long it took for the cold to seep upward, into our tent. While the coldness of the air around us was bad enough, the cold below us was startling – it was ice. We tossed and turned and shivered all night, and as soon as there was light enough to see by, we packed up and headed back to the park. Now that we knew what we were dealing with we knew what to do.
Our original plan had been to spend one night and half a day at this place, but our harsh night had really taken its toll on us. We were achy and sick and we felt three nights might be in order. We dealt with the frozen ground by pitching our tent over a picnic table and sleeping on the concrete pad; still cold, yes, but nothing like the ice of the night before. We enjoyed ourselves and recovered. Perhaps it had been cold night, or the beauty of this park, but by staying these extra days we had inadvertently depleted our food stores. We could only carry so much in our packs and we were careful to plan the legs our journey so that we would reach a town in time to get food. We knew we had no choice, we had to leave at first light.
It was still cold, and we were still sore, but we managed to get far enough from the river to avoid the frozen ground, and as usual, it felt good to be walking again. We ate sparingly but it finally happened that we were out of food. We knew we were only a day and a half from the next town, so we would die or anything, but it just so happened that it was Thanksgiving day. We both felt stupid for our predicament, and simultaneously blamed each other and ourselves. And then we noticed that we were coming up on some pecan trees.
We had seen a lot of pecan trees since leaving Austin and we had passed many people selling the nuts; clearly it had been a good year for the trees. But we had not seen them next to the road like this. Usually there was nothing growing along the side of the road except low weeds and bushes, but suddenly in the middle of nowhere there where these line of about a dozen towering trees. Elated, we were able to find a few good nuts on the ground, and we quickly found rocks and sticks to throw at the lower branches, rewarding us with a few more. Of course they were delicious to us, and though we only managed about fifteen nuts altogether, be felt better. We had gone a few more miles when we saw another small collection of pecan trees a long the road, and we were able to collects a few more nuts.
This continued for many miles…small groves of pecan trees dotting the roadside, all the way to the next town. For Thanksgiving we had all the pecans we could eat, and then more. We became convinced that these plantings had been done on purpose, maybe even by pioneers, to keep them alive on the trail. Regardless of how or why those pecan trees were on this road on this day we cannot say for certain, but we could not have been more thankful.