Holiday Spelunking

(Let me preface by saying that McKenzie and McCoy are the biggest joys in my life.)

Weekends, with two young kids and no parents or in-laws within ditching distance, can be long.

Holiday weekends, though, can be eternal.

This evening, out of curiosity and, frankly, ideas, we headed to Inner Space Caverns. (You've seen the signs, feined the interest, toyed with the idea of going Down Under.) So after driving 10 miles past the joint, hanging a U and learning upon our arrival that oh, no sir, no strollers will be permitted during your 90-minute tour, we began our descent.

Immediately, I was reminded of a bar in Juarez some two decades ago. See, when you grow up in Wes Texas (Odessa) and relatives (crazy aunts, cousins and the like) come to town, and once they've seen the best Odessa has to offer - the World's Largest Meteor Crater (a hole), the World's Largest Jackrabbit (a statue) and the World's Best High School Football Stadium (a sanctuary), there are really only three destinations. They are, as follows:

(1) Monahans Sand Hills: Picture the biggest beach you've ever seen. Then delete all traces of water. There are only two places I can think of hotter than the Monahans Sand Hills - (a) the center of the Earth's core and (b) the inside of a chicken pot pie.

(2) Carlsbad Caverns - If this were baseball, the Inner Space Caverns would be a Double A affiliate of the Carlsbad Caverns. We loaded the family truckster with distant relatives and junk food in a squeaky styrofoam cooler at least once a year and, at least to a 10-year-old kid, it was pretty cool. Massive, prehistoric, damp. Much like my Uncle Saul.

And (3) Juarez, Mexico. Across the border from El Paso and five hours from Odessa, it always seemed quite a jaunt to save four bucks on an Indian blanket or to haggle a hag for chicle. But my dad got dentures there for a song once, I won 20 bucks on a greyhound named Mister Jeff and, more to the point, I got buzzed at a Cave Bar when I was 11.

Today, it might be a bit un-P.C. to tote your third-grader into a bar and let him fall asleep in the booth under a few cloth napkins and the haze of Pall Malls. Apparently it wasn't in 1979. I vividly remember leaving the market place and following the clan through a cave entrance, down some rickety stairs and into a dark, smokey bar that had stalagtites hanging from the ceiling and rubber bats clinging from above. While my uncles and aunts and folks discoed and drank and drank and discoed, I sampled from their Grasshoppers and Old Fashioned's and Colorado Bulldogs and other concoctions that likely haven't been ordered since, well, 1979. It was, how you say, muy bueno.

Anyway, as McCoy clung to Jenn like a cheap suit (I owe you one) and McKenzie continually broke rule numero uno pronounced beforehand by our robotic tour guide Jan ("Don't touch ANYTHING."), I wandered ahead with the stalagtites and bats and my thoughts. I swear I could smell a Grasshopper.

Truth is, despite it's minor league status, the Inner Space Caverns were pretty beautiful. Millions of years in the making, perfection with little human intervention. Too bad we find a way to screw so many things up above the ground.