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 The Flea-Bitten Flatlands of Hell / douglas s. benson
I rose to check the weather for our trip in the dim hours between dawn andCaptain Kangaroo. It was Sunday morning of Memorial Day weekend,1994, and Ben K was on his way over to pick me up for two calm andrestorative days of backwoods hiking in Arkansas. A quick glance at the Whether Channel (to determine whether or not we'd be heading out)stopped my last-minute packing. Excited reporters showed video of intenseand angry storms that were sweeping southeast through Oklahoma,straight toward our intended stomping grounds in Ouachita State Park. Ihad visions of being swept through the mountains by a tidal wave of  Arkansas flotsam, beer cans and spent shotgun shells as I fell back into—lawd, forgive me—my uneasy chair.Upon doctor Ben's arrival we made a snap (i.e. hasty) decision to drop theplans for driving northeast and instead head west for parts unknown. So Ikissed Marci goodbye, and both Ben and I repeated after her in thetraditional Oath of Stupidity:
"I promise not to do anything stupid like I did last time." 
We tossed the gear in Ben's 4Runner, grabbed a Texas Parksmap, put pedal to the plastic and headed for the highway. We knew only this: we were headed away from the storms, and we'd figure out thespecifics en route."Fort Stinkin' Desert, here we come!" As Ben drove us west by northwest, Isurveyed the possible state parks that lay near our route. We settled onCaprock Canyons, a good six-hour drive, and the only park on our map thatmentioned primitive camping.Ben was hopeful. "Should be dry as a bone by mid-day," he declared,defying the weather gods as we fled the splattering rain and gatheringstorm clouds of Dallas. Sure enough, as morning gave up the ghost, the beautiful grasses and wildflowers of our tiny highway yielded to scrub treesand the cracked, burnt orange desert soil of west Texas. The sun and themercury soared in the cloudless sky, and dust devils churned the black plowed fields to our left and right. This part of Texas is apparently big business for dust cultivation and dirt farming.
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 The Flea-Bitten Flatlands of Hell / douglas s. benson
 At one point we pulled the car to the edge of a field to pick some cotton, just to see what it was like. I don't recommend it. The reason cotton ballsare so soft and white is that they remove the thorns, comb through the dirt,and bleach out all of 
my blood!
For a long time during the drive there wasn't much to look at. Highways innorth-central Texas are a poor place for sightseeing unless you've beensuffering from a lack of horizons. After hours of endless
 Nothing,
we wereon the lookout for
 Anything.
In Turkey, Texas, a bustling one milemetropolis (if you round up), we settled for...
 Something.
Bob Wills, the late "King of Western Swing" and leader of the TexasPlayboys, is memorialized in Turkey by a statue that from a distanceresembles a thin grain silo, or spare parts from pre-NASA attempts atputting spiders in orbit, or one of those Rocket popsicles from ourchildhood for which we had risked our lives chasing the Ice Cream Man. Atthe side of the main street in Turkey, the statue's tall octagonal granite baseis surmounted, possibly in an afterthought, by a thin shaft of tin capped with a stunted viola that was probably intended to be a violin. Etched in thepolished stone of the base are the immortal accomplishments of Bob Wills,and as they are immortal, I shan't repeat them here. I will now create asense of suspense, and leave you to travel to Turkey, Texas and see for yourself. And while you're at it, visit the Bob Wills Museum in room 103 of the oldhigh school. If the museum is closed, you can while away an hour lookingat class pictures going back to the early 1900's. Let's just say that Turkey inthe early 20th century was not a net exporter of Hollywood-style paragonsof beauty. But if you're looking for big ears and buck teeth, look no furtherthan the old black and whites on the walls of Turkey High.Ben and I arrived at the Caprock park station in the early afternoon. Theranger, a dried up coughing hag we subsequently named Beulah, suggested we hike the old train track trail into the canyons. The trail wasn't in thepark, but was on a narrow strip of park land, part of a "rails to trails"
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 The Flea-Bitten Flatlands of Hell / douglas s. benson
conversion. Since hiking the rail trail was the same advice I'd been givenover the phone by another park ranger we later named El Diablo, weturned the truck around. We headed away from the ranger station towardthe trailhead several miles outside the park, down a dusty dirt road thatscraped its way through flat and scrubby ranch land. We slathered ourselves with sunscreen, filled five canteens from the water jug in the truck, donned hats, boots and bandannas, and hauled our packsonto our backs. Stepping onto the trail, a now tie-less railroad from the1800's, we looked down the mounded black strip of crushed volcanic rock.It stretched absolutely straight through the flat desert to a perfect vanishing point on the far horizon, like an illustration from an art primeron How To Draw Perspective.Smarter hikers would have reconsidered at that point. But Ben and I began walking, crunching across the pumice plain like stomping through piles of Cheerios and bone shards. The map showed that we would have to walk four and a half miles before reaching a long train tunnel, gateway to thepromised canyon lands beyond. Within minutes we were soaked in sweat,the surprisingly humid heat murderously intensified by the black rock of the trail. Generous portions of liver-killing insecticide helped keep thehordes of blackflies at bay. Nevertheless, we can both attest the blackflies were indeed of a biting variety, and apparently drawn irresistibly to sweaty  young men in much the same way that young women are not.Hours, miles and canteens later, Ben stopped, looked at me and in a dry croak I'd not heard before, rasped, "Doug, I believe we are in Hell." By thistime, our locale had long been renamed "Craprock Canyons." But as thesweat-soaked map had promised, we eventually came to a series of heat- blasted low hills that sat like buttocks in the sand, and a bend in the dusty trail that led us toward a cliff face, and the gaping maw of a black tunnelstretching far into darkness. With no sight of Cerberus, three-headedcanine guardian of the underworld, we staggered into the tunnel and intodeepening shadows. The temperature dropped to subterranean levels and we could smell the pungent guano that indicated we were not alone.
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