A Camping Trip

By Matthew Bulliner

Dear James,

How are you doing? I hope you are doing well in directing the production of AOE8. I’m sorry you couldn’t come camping with us, well maybe next time. We are camping at Swazzihazze state park in Texas. It is really quite beautiful with its tall trees, blue skies, and clear lake. When taking a walk, especially in the morning, the air smells as fresh and clean as it would on a mountain. However, fortunately, it is warmer than a mountain, being around 85F in the middle of the day.

Chris and Michael have been fishing a lot. Three days ago they brought home a rather odd looking fish. It was about two feet long, not including its additional two foot, straight, pointy tail. It had a circular shape, was pink and green, while its tail was blue. The strangest thing about I was its mouth. Its lips were circular and were rather oddly shaped, it looked like someone had taken a cone the full diameter of its circular body and pressed it into its mouth, and pulled it away leaving the indent there. The way it opened its mouth, was by forcing the inner folds of its mouth back, causing the tip of its cone-like lips to separate, which made the mouth to become a cylinder instead of a cone. Inside its’ mouth, behind its teeth, there were dozens of straight, sharp teeth. It had only one eye on the top of its head, and two three inch long ears.

When they got back to the area where we were camping they asked Daniel, a scientist, what type of fish it was. He replied, I have never seen or heard of anything like it before, but I will see if I can figure out what it is. After spending an hour on his handheld computer, he came back and announced that it was a new species. At that Elisabeth declared, Then I think we should name the species ‘perty.’ Nathan on the other hand decided that the new species should be called ‘ugo.’ After arguing for about fifteen minutes, on what to call it and whether we should try it for dinner, Daniel said that we would call the species “Pruggy,” and that no, we would not eat it for dinner, because he needed a specimen to study. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for you, I got the whole thing on tape, and am sending it to you with this letter. I am considering sending it to “funniest home videos ever.” Despite having caught that rather odd fish we still played in the water extensively.

My favorite thing so far has been jet skiing. I remember back when I first jet skied. The first ones I drove on were Uncle Vic’s at Higgins Lake, which was fun. They only went about 60mph which is slow compared to the one I’ve got now. On this camping trip I brought my lay back plutonium turbo jet ski, which goes about 210mph. Jack and Joe, Michael’s kids, seem to enjoy going for rides on them, they always seem to want to go faster.

The lake itself is quite clean and clear, because there is no iron or other coloring minerals in it. It is rather large being about ten square miles. It is a sandy lake with no drop off, it slopes off at a moderate rate, and being about 6ft about 35yd’s out. The water it self is fairly nice, being about 85F. Sitting on the sandy beach as I am now, I have a wonderful view. Across the lake you can see the beach leading up to the trees, far beyond these you can see tall mountains with snow capped peaks, and beyond the peaks you can see nothing but sky, except for a half dozen puffy white clouds. With beautiful scenery, and most of the family here, it is an excellent place, and I am having the time of my life. We all miss you and hope you can come out next year.

-Matthew