Texas late 70's

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I wrote about half the story up. Itā€™s long! Iā€™m debating whether I should post it. Iā€™m standing by for the next chapter on this one. I have a feeling this story has more than 2 chapters :wink:

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I want to read your story, in fact I demand it.

Hereā€™s something we did several times back in the 70s, a trip to Paleface Park/Hippy Hollow on the Pedernales River just outside of Austin.

It was clothing optional but nobody wore any except the outraged man with his family we met and told us, ā€œyou donā€™t want to go there, everybody is nekkid.ā€ Ya think, thatā€™s why weā€™re here.

We set up camp and went down to the gorgeous cliffs at varying levels up to 50 feet where you can jump into the deep and spacious river.

The rednecks would cruise up in their boats where they could spy with their bioculars seeing breasts and actual pubic hair, I hope thatā€™s was all they were checking out.

Food, baked potatoes with Velveeta and butter, donā€™t knock it unless youā€™ve been swimming all day and have a serious case of the munchies.

We slept on the ground in sleeping bags and woke up with numerous bites from who knows what.

That park is still there and clothing optional, the only one in Texas but the runaway development around it is disgusting.

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Quick point of clarification.

Both Paleface Park and Hippie Hollow are on Lake Travis which is the Colorado River, not Pedernales. They are also basically on different sides of the lake with PP on the west and HH on the east. Back in the day, our spot was called the Rocks which was down a long and winding Park Road near the dam but wound up just around the bend from HH. More private.

Hippie Hollow had too many gawking tourists from Houston.

:grin:

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Now Iā€™m confused and not sure where I was but everyone was nekkid jumping off cliffs and a good time was had by all except for the pissed off guy hurriedly evacuating his family from the heathens.

Iā€™m assuming you were nekkid too unless you were a ā€œsquare.ā€

While Iā€™m a lot ā€œrounderā€ than I used to be, I was never exactly ā€œsquareā€.

And if you want to look up Pale Face, itā€™s been renamed ā€œPace Bend Parkā€ for quite a while. Austin was an early adopter in political correctness.

Edited to bring back to topic: About halfway between Hippie Hollow and the Rocks is the Oasis. As restaurants go, itā€™s a great place for drinks at sundown, :wink: , but I havenā€™t been since it burned down and was rebuilt.

Maybe they upgraded the food as well.

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I did look it up and saw Pace Bend which confused me even more. Thanks for setting it straight.

Whatā€™s next, Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians? Oops, gone.

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OK so here we go with a story from my ā€œfriendā€ and in his wordsā€¦ as promised @jcostiones

We decide to head up to northern NJ and for some reason we choose a state park, Stokes state forest. Not a good choice. We spend the first night having a good time and wake up the the next day looking to party. We had a good mix of girls and guys and a few people that didnā€™t party hard, and some that partied harder than they should.

Itā€™s kind of early and some people decided they wanted to cook some food and others decided to indulge in some things.

My friend ā€œChurchā€ decided to start up the stove with some Coleman white gas that we used the previous night. He pours some gas on the stove to light it up. Little does he realize there are coals still lit from the night before.

He pours the gas on the stove which had charcoal lingering and it suddenly ignites! A flame goes crazy and fires up to the canister. I watch in slow motion as fire goes from the grill and climbs up the pouring gas. It happened in a spilt second yet felt like a lifetime in my state of mind.

He literally does a 360 and throws the entire gas can into the creek next to the campsite. He is right handed.

While spinning, a bunch of gas spatters all over and I happen to catch a bunch of gas in my lap. Iā€™M ON FUCKING FIRE! MY ENTIRE LAP HAS A GIANT FIRE BALL! My heart literally almost stops but adrenaline kicks in. I drop and roll in the dirt parking gravel. Somehow I put it out and get up. There are small fires everywhere from the gas strewn about. The entire creek is on fire as he rocketed it into the stream! Itā€™s mayhem! The damn creek is entirely on fire and flowing down stream. The gas canister is in the stream floating and chugging out fuel into the water, making the fire worse.

Next thing you know a park ranger passes by and things go from bad to worse. He had absolutely no clue what to do and calls for backup. There are small fires all around and an entire creek is lit up in flames still. It was scary shit. Picture small fires all around your site and on the picnic tableā€¦not good.

I am bugging out!!! I didnā€™t want to stash anything in my van so I take off as the ranger and my friends try to put the flames out on land. The creek fire just blazes. Flames on water is something to see barreling down the mountain. I stash everything I had in a tree hole I found nearby and take off running.

There are camp sites to the north and south and I run into the woods away from everything.

Eventually I meet my friends, one by one, in the woods who also bolted when the ranger showed up. Iā€™m not sure how long it took, but I eventually met up with andy, ā€œSteen the leanā€ and scruffles. We somehow all met in the woods and had an amazing trip. We sat in the woods for a long time. I donā€™t know how it all happened but my abdomen and stomach were not too bad. It was slightly painful and I got really lucky.

By the time I got into the woods and located my friends, what I ate had started to kick in hard. Scruffles didnā€™t ditch his stash. So we put some smoke in the air on this giant boulder as all 4 of us sat around. Then things started to get freaky.

All of the sudden every boulder turns into a ram! They start running around and luckily they just did that. They ran around and it was insane! They didnā€™t want to hurt anyone and I just watched as rams cruised by running through the forest. It is hard to describe. It was hours of euphoria as the forest came to life. Donā€™t try this any of this. Chapter 2 nextā€¦

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Iā€™m walking around in the woods, donā€™t know which way is up or down, or east or west. Too boot, Iā€™ve got a stench of burning pubes and burnt clothes. Holy shit! Ahhhhhh

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That does it. Weā€™re going to have to incorporate your crazy stories with my nutty stories, write a screenplay and find a producer.

Nobody can make this stuff up.

No pics?

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Haha! Letā€™s make some cash :wink:

This was pre-cellphone dayā€¦luckily! I have another one that would amaze you. It is mind blowing. It is so good I actually caught a guy in a bar telling the story and claiming it was his own. I called him out and we almost got into it. Itā€™s a local legend here. Itā€™s not quite appropriate for here, but Iā€™ll see if I can write it up for you. It will take a long time. You could easily make a movie out of this night!

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There is an update to my July 1979 story now available at popular prices on the Texas board. I have more but must try to remember them.

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Good grief!

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I think we just need to combine the two threads into ā€œthe official jcostiones Rollercoaster rideā€

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The hair and eyes yes, everything else no.