They've discovered that the three of them make an excellent traveling team. Rumple loves to plan: studying road maps, pumping Expedia and Priceline for the best deals, then phoning hotels to ferret out even better deals with his "your competitor offered me a senior discount and a Triple A discount. Can you do better?" approach. Not that they need worry about money: they've learned in their travels that their black American Express is almost as powerful as magic in this vast land.
Belle is the researcher, proudly taking each town on his map and running it through Fodors and Lonely Planet before hopping on Yelp and Trip Advisor. In less than an hour, she can produce an annotated list of sights to see in any American town—as well as a secondary list of the overrated and overpriced tourist traps.
And ten-year-old Gideon, eyes eagle sharp from the backseat of the Caddy, has radar for finding sights not in any book. The more unusual, the better. Like his father, Gid is a collector of the odd, capturing everything from roadside snake farms to street jugglers with his camera.
They have come to South Texas now, for a week of high adventure. This is more a Rumple-and-Gid thing, Belle thinks, but that's okay: whatever excites them pleases her. Gid has been yammering on about the amusement parks: he can't wait to ride The Joker at Six Flags and catch his breath as the mighty Shamu etches an arch against the bright blue sky at Seaworld. But his favorite, which he makes sure to include in every conversation, lest his parents forget, is Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium, with its shrunken heads, headless chicken, and duck-mouthed lady. "On Alamo Plaza," he reminds Dad solemnly. "Open 10 a.m. to 11 p. m. daily." From behind the steering wheel, Dad assures him Ripley's will not be left out, while Mom just sighs.
In private, they've discussed Gid's fascination with the weird, Mom wondering if indulging it will leave an indelible stain on the boy's innocence, but Dad replying by pointing to the odd stuff in his shop—including a portrait that she herself had painted of the sparkly, scaly Dark One in his Enchanted Forest years. "I think his interest in the unique things in life is unavoidable, sweetheart." Still, Belle had fretted, until one afternoon, as Neal and Gid grossed each other out with a snake skin, Snow remarked upon the same fascination in her own son. "They're ten," Snow concluded. "Two years ago, they played in mud. Two years from now, it'll be cars."
Belle does believe in encouraging her child's intellectual development, so she indulges him, taking comfort in the fact that Gid reads more and plays computer games less often than his peers. As the Caddy sails down IH-35, weaving its way between Ford F150s with "Protected by Smith & Wesson" bumper stickers and Honda Accords with "I love my granddog" bumper stickers, Rumple growls every time he's cut off: "Use your friggin' turn signal, Sheep-Dip-for-Brains." Belle thinks, for Gid's sake, she should chastise her husband, but these drivers make her just as annoyed as he is, so she lets the first almost-cuss-word slide. Five minutes later, as a U-Haul slides in front of the Caddy, Rumple's at it again: "Use your friggin' turn signal, Sheep-Dip-for-Brains." Ten minutes later and it's become a mantra that Belle lets him have, because she realizes it's tamping his temper down.
Gid reads every road sign aloud (every road sign, Rumple mutters under his breath). Periodically he shouts out, and they pull off the highway to satisfy his curiosity (when he whispers, it's because he needs a restroom). It impedes their progress to San Antonio, but that's okay: by sunset they can boast that they've seen the Giant Slice of Pie (Kyle), the Fake Castle and Dragon (Buda—Gid is not impressed; he's seen the real things, but he does appreciate the World Largest Pinball Machine inside the castle), the Giant Armadillo (Schertz), and the World's Largest Cowboy Boots (San Antonio). At a Cracker Barrel they chow down on chicken fried steak and pick up an "I Wasn't Born in Texas But I Got Here as Fast as I Could" bumper sticker.
That was just the first day in Central-South Texas.