whitney mccaskill

cont’d from roadtrip series

Taylor and I left Enchanted Rock Saturday around 2ish and made a quick stop at the Wildseed Farm right outside of Fredericksburg because ma was adamant that we stop there. As a sidenote, that place is a little unnecessarily expensive. So. Yeah. That was that.  It was incredibly lovely, though. A whole field of mint?! Who can hate?

After the Wildflower place, we stopped at little peach “stand” with tons of homegrown veggies and fruits, homemade jams and butters, and homemade peach ice cream! Okay so I have grown up with my mom making her own peach ice cream, and let me say that mom’s peach ice cream……is hands down the most delicious and unbeatable ‘cream ever. But I totally forgot to get some at this place haha so I’m not sure where the competition stands. Anyways we got a basket of peaches (for a mere $1.25!) and some cucumbers (we’re going to try to make our own pickles….oh dear.) and were on our way. Oh, and Taylor was just giddy with adoration for the little man that checked us out. He had this ridiculously badasss, vintage hat that said Luckenbach, Texas that Taylor wanted soo badly. Anyways. So that was that. Back on the road! 

We were on our way to Hunt for the towns centennial festival. We got there an hour before it ended *cue womp womp womp sound effect* but who cares because we were standing right next to none other than our very own previous mayoral candidate mista Kinkaaaay Friedman! How cool, right? Taylor has meet him a few times before so he was totally offended Kinkster didn’t recognize him and greet him with a big ol “MAAAAH main man Taylor!’ but you know, not everything goes the way you want it. I’m pretty sure Kinky lives in Hunt so we were probably the only ones all excited to see him. He’s great. 

cont’d from roadtrip series

After we left Hondo’s, we headed to Enchanted Rock to set up camp for the night. Since it was almost midnight we couldn’t exactly see what we were doing or where we were setting up camp, so we just threw up the tent pretty close to the parking lot. Welp. The next day as we were hiking up E-Rock, we saw the DESIGNATED camping spots, and boy were those beautiful. I was so mad we camped in a field as opposed to tucked away in the rocks and trees, but it’s okay. It was a lot of fun. 

We got woken up at about roughly 6:15 in the morning. To a herd of pre-pubescent boyscouts. I woke up to myself telling Taylor I was going to skin those boyscouts and not shortly after, there was this one ‘scout’ that I swear to the heavens above was the kid from Up- big ol belly, tiny hat, dorky shoes, and the cutest personality I think ever- and he saw Miller and *I’m not even joking, you guys* starts yelling, “A BEAVER! A BEAVER! LOOK A BEAVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!” 

Taylor and I lost it. It was awesome. Anyways, so we went back to sleep, woke up a few hours later (which I was surprisingly angry about because I love the 7:30 starts to the day), Taylor cooked up some bacon-potato-egg-cheese breakfast tacos with a side of watermelon and granola (um, YUM-O-RAMA). Then we packed up our camp stuff and ventured off the hike up Enchanted Rock. It was quite an incline but totally worth it when we got to the top. The only other time I’ve been to E-Rock was for our 8th grade field trip with our science teacher Bair and I think Mr. Brown our history teacher, and it was so much fun, just because they were the best teachers ever and we had the coolest class of kids. Anyways, I think I appreciated the beauty of Enchanted Rock a whole lot more this time around. 

So I kept seeing this little plants, which I dubbed Squishy Plants, that were soo cute and had tiny little yellow flowers. Well we found a patch of dirt that we could easily cut out one of the plants, so we did :) and I can guarantee you that it was an illegal maneuver, yet totally worth it.  Because now, I have a squishy plant repotted with a lot of pink granite rocks on my front porch. 

After exploring Enchanted Rock for a good handful of hours, we made our way to the bottom, to the car, and off to our next destination: the WildSeed Farm in Fredericksburg. 

cont’d from roadtrip series

Bidding adieu to Wimberley, Taylor and I eased our way over to Fredericksburg after we made a grocery stop and goofed around in the parking lot for longer than was necessary. He had been to Hondos with some buddies a while ago and just remembered that they had killer burgers and we had to go there. So! We got all dolled up in the parking lot and headed in to get some toe-curlingly tasty dinner. 

We sat next to these 2 older men that were just precious. I’m talkin’ precious enough for you to wish they were pocket-sized. One of them moved to Austin in 1957 and it turns out he lived RIGHT down the road from where my parents’ house is now. I keep kicking myself because had I not had that marg, I would have totally interviewed this man. I had so many of my nosey nosey questions for him and I am just so pissed I didn’t at least ask him his name so I could find him later. I just have this feeling that he knew my dad because my dad moved out to Lake Travis/Apache Shores when the nearest grocery store was an HOUR away! and nobody else lived out there! EXCEPT APPARENTLY THIS MAN! Oh geez. He was fantastic! 

That was my favorite part of the trip-going to Hondos. The food was excellent, the people-ranging from young adults to obnoxiously wasted bachelorettes to effortlessly cool older folks-were so much fun, the lighting was so pleasant, the band was awesomely talented, and I want to go back every night. I love Fredericksburg so so so very much. 

(cont’d from camping series)
After we left Pedernales we headed to Wimberley to see what antiques we could discover, and by antiques I mean food because we were ready for some hard grub time. We walked around for a bit and decided on Marco’s Italian, which was a BOMB decision because it was unbelievably delicious. Taylor ran across the street to a winery and snagged a few bottles, so we just hung out on the very French patio, ate some really good food, sipped some sugary wine, and chatted for a while. It’s amazing how your entire character reacts to a reduction in stress. When I’m typically always on a schedule and always have so much to do and worry about, having zero obligations was such a welcomed change. I noticed that I was actually okay with just sitting around and relaxing. I’m not sure how well you personally know me, but I am really terrible at chilling out. It’s something I’ve been figuring out at this stage in my life. 

ANYWAYS! After we ate and walked around downtown Wimberley for a bit, got some coffee at Sip!, we drove to Blue hole, which has the coolest water at a swimming hole that I have ever seen. They were in the process of finishing the redo of the hole because the city bought the property but we decided to just hang out until they asked us to leave haha. Nobody was there, save the landscapers, and eventually the guy in charge of the project came over to nicely kick us out. We talked to him for a while because he was a cool dude-very genuine, down to earth, and blunt. He reminded me a little bit of my dad. 

Next we went to Jacob’s well, another swimming hole that Taylor went to a lot when he was a lil feller. There’s a 60 ft (correct? yes?) hole under the water, which is apparently supposed to be really cool and intriguing to people, but underwater caves scare the living HELL out of me, my anxiety is aching just thinking of getting stuck in one. 
When we got there, there were 3 local boys playing a fiddle, banjo, and guitar. It was so cool. They were awesome, I wish I had a recording of them to listen to when I write. There a handful of other kids from the area just hanging on the cliff, carelessly smoking big ol’ joints and drinkin’ lots of booze. Of course I didn’t get a photo of them, but just take my word for it that it was exactly what you are picturing. 
So Taylor decides to throw me his flip flops after climbing up on the cliff and unsurprisingly one of them gets stuck really high up in a tree. Without even thinking, one of the guys hanging out on the cliff announces that he’s got it, dives off the cliff into the hole, and scales the aforementioned tree to get Taylor’s shoe. He definitely wanted to prove and use his monkey skills, but it was great. 

That’s the difference between small town folks and city people. Austinites are notoriously friendly, but it seemed these kids fell into a different category of friendliness. They weren’t territorial of “their spot,” they just wanted to find a common ground in conversation, to share their weed, to appreciate the beauty of this place with whomever happened to stumble behind those dumpy apartments. She has no idea, but the girl that asked me about Miller’s breed before telling me stories of her grandpa’s Aussie-that girl taught me a lot about just simply relating to people. 

(cont’d roadtrip recap)
Taylor and I got to Pedernales State Park almost around 1 AM and set up camp. As a side note, you should know that I haven’t been camping since, like, 5th grade, when I went with my homegirl Katelyn and her fam….and I had a sprained wrist and I was a huge pain in the ass. But I fuhreaking LOVE camping. I really, really, really do, and our tent was pretty much just netting from about 2 feet off the ground to the top, so it was like we didn’t even HAVE a tent.

It was amazing. 

The next morning we were up at about 7:30, which ruled *seriously. I mean it. I’m not being sarcastic, it was so great* so we made breakfast and jumped on the Ruckus to head down to see where dinosaurs originated. 

I mean, they most likely did. We explored for a few hours, tried to catch some frogs, threw Miller into the water a couple of times to entertain ourselves at the dog’s expense, explored some more, made a lot of mou’n peeple (“mountain people”) jokes because we are such hillbillies sometimes/all the time, and headed back to pack up our camp stuff. 

On to the next adventure! Pedernales was beautiful. Last time Taylor and I went there, it was a spontaneous late night stop on our way home from the zoo and the moonlight made the dinosaur nests like right out of a dang storybook. We also saw a very bushy tailed fox in the parking lot, which was RADICAL!

Ayo everybody, 

(like anyone gives a fourth of a shit) I know I haven’t posted anything in a longass time. School is crazy, but I love it so es cool. Anyways, as you SHOULD know, VALENTINES DAY is my favorite holiday of the entire year, but not for any of the reasons you might think.

And I will tell you why.

a) Februrary 14th is a Whitney day. Meaning, every Valentines day, I buy *more than usual* loads of candy, turn my phone off all day, and lay in the park and read and draw and write and lay out allllll day. 

b) I think buying things, especially expensive things, for someone else for Valentines day is just plain silly (except, of course, you give someone a typewriter…..!!!!!!!!!!!). Why don’t you just make absurd valentines to mail to all your friends? Y’know? Y’know?

c) I like hearts n pink n red n sugar n love n lovable n girly shit. So obviously I like Valentines day. 

Enjoy some very very pleasant pix.

also! I love you!

happy valentines day yaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllll!

XOXO, WHITTY