Suspicious Activity in The Hood

We see a lot of park rangers around here on Padre Island National Seashore. But not the like ones swarming the car next door.

These guys mean business, talking into their hands-free walkie-talkies, toting big sidearms (Glocks, maybe?). Some ride in those big white pick-up trucks; two slither out of an unmarked Ford with red, blue and green lights splashing back and forth across the rear window.

Something's going down and I'm dying to know what.

They're blocking in my new neighbors, a bunch if teens (well, I'm guessing they're teens) tent camping on the beach. They've been gone all day and just drove back in, parking their big, black Lincoln Nagivator in the empty lot next to ours.   Six or seven of the kids in the SUV spill out and start unpacking their gear (including fishing poles)  while the cops talk to them.

No one seems concerned. But the cops stay a long time. Are they searching their car? Looking for drugs? Terrorists??

I am so curious. I need an excuse to wander around outside, to ask questions, to root out the reason the cops (well, park rangers) are investigating my neighbors. Ah. A book. A book I can leave in the bathroom (that's where the book exchange is).

I grab "The Pilot's Wife" (by Anita Shreve) and walk outside, meandering toward the book drop. I ask a few people, "What's up?" Dunno, they say.

I ask a few more. "Dunno, either. But, let us know if you find out."

I drop the book off in the bathroom and turn to walk back to my motor home. A big park ranger (and I mean really big, like football player big) pulls his huge white ranger pickup truck right next to me and leans out the window and says, with a big Texas drawl, "You seem concerned."

Bingo! This guy'll know what's what!

"This face is not a face of concern," I smile, trying to joke my way into getting my answers. "This is a face of curiosity."

"Well, they were speeding. Through the park. That's all." Then he drove away.

Speeding. Speeding. All this activity for a speeding ticket? Do I buy this?

I turn back to the folks who want my report and file my story.

"Don't believe 'em," one guys says.

"It's just a front," the woman remarks. "Something else has to be going on."

"It's a coverup," the third guys says, then cracks a smiles and whispers:

"Aliens."