1. Leaving For Town
Their ice chest is good, but it’s not a Yeti. They periodically look at them but recoil in horror every time they see the price tag. It’s just crazy. And as he’s let the fair and industrious Trudy know, thanks to his cousin Stevie’s stories when he was young, he’ll never be camping en pleine air in bear country. For them, a Yeti unambiguously qualifies as a want not a need.
Being Yeti deprived, after three days almost all the ice was melted. The fair and industrious Trudy had been talking about this eventuality for two days, and her husband had not been responsive, finding the prospect of cranking in the van’s awning to be just an epsilon more than he wanted to deal with. But now there could be no further procrastination. It was time to leave South Llano River State Park and drive the five miles into Junction for ice.
They retracted the awning that was attached to the van, which they agreed they’d leave rolled up, since next day’s weather called for rain, and they didn’t want it to be wet on their drove home.
Then he drove into town alone. No sense, they figured, in the both of them going into the store — no sense when we’re all keeping our social distance. He left campsite 39 behind with Izzy sitting in Trudy’s lap who was reading a book in the sun of that warm afternoon.
2. At The Grocery Store
The park is on US 377 which runs north into Junction where it turns west a few blocks and then continues beyond Interstate 10 on the north side of town.
There is a grocery store there, where 377 turns west. So instead of making the turn, he drove straight into the lot and went inside. In for ice, of course. But also maybe in for toilet paper. And maybe in for some wipes. Or a gallon of bleach.
As it turned out, there was only a small bottle of bleach, which he bought. No toilet paper. No wipes. So he rolled the cart up to the cashier with that bleach. And four bananas. And a box of pop-tarts — a splurge for his fair and industrious spouse who had made a comment the previous day about pop-tarts after they saw a kid walk by with some. (In the event, her desire for pop-tarts implicitly required a companion toaster which their well-stocked rental van did not include. And having no desire for pop-tarts himself, they ended up taking them home the next day, additional provisions perhaps for the shut-in life that they’d soon be returning to.)
“And two bags of ice, please,” he said to the cashier.
3. They Got Eggs?
As he pushed his meager load back to the van, a pickup truck drove up and stopped next to him. The driver had a sun-worn face, a cowboy hat, and an elbow out the window.
“They got anything in there?” the driver asked.
“Well, they got some things.”
“Eggs? They got eggs?”
He had not gone in for eggs, but he did remember seeing another sun-worn man pushing a cart laden with many things that included eggs and bread.
“They got eggs.”
“And what about bread?”
“Yep, I saw someone with eggs and bread.”
“Well that’s great,” the driver said. “Thank, you.”
“Take it easy,” he said to the man who drove on. He loaded his modest purchase into the van, turned the ignition, listened to the sound of the Volkswagen engine, and headed back to campsite 39.