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Texas state parks showcase a host of treasured resources – canyons and caverns, dinosaur tracks and hiking trails, waterfalls and whitewater rivers. The parks also preserve a remarkable archeological record, rich evidence of Texas’s Indigenous past.

Órale, the onda this week is La Llorona (the female crier), a scary mythical character that evolved from Spanish colonial times. There are many versions of the myth. All of them center on a woman who cries by the river for her children. There are many different stories about who she really is, why she’s crying and whether it’s a tale or a real story. La Llorona is alternatively crying because her children have been drowned by their father or because she drowned them. There’s also an interpretation that La Llorona’s a metaphor for La Malinche, a famous Aztec historical figure who married a Spanish conquistador in 1492 and divulged her country’s strategic weaknesses and divisions. In this version of the myth, the children for whom La Llorona cries are really her kin and countrymen who’d been metaphorically drowned by the conquistadors. The myth is retold from Chile to Colorado.

It’s a fragile little grass, with a fragile future. Guadalupe fescue was first identified in the Guadalupe Mountains in 1932 – but hasn’t been seen in its namesake Texas range for decades.

Facilitated by the nonprofit Texan by Nature, and funded by oil giant ConocoPhillips, the Delaware River Basin Restoration project aims to revive an historic stream in Culberson County, 70 miles north of Van Horn.

Órale, the onda this week of Caló is chucho. It means candy. It comes from the Romaní word for a mother’s breast, chuchai, as in the source of nourishment for a newborn. It’s indeed an exaggerated metaphor for mere candy, but the term speaks to the primal desire for candy, not so much the substance itself. It says humans want chucho because it takes them back to the first sweet they ever tasted. In this sense, even the best candy is a faint approximation of a chucho.

Órale, the onda of this week in Caló is Cucuy. It means a non-descript monster. It’s origin is an Iberian mythical creature with a coconut-like head. The mythical figure migrated in stories from Southern Europe to the Americas with the Spanish, who took it up the Rio Grande. By the time it rooted in the local culture, it was only as a rumor—something nobody could describe that was lurking out there somewhere. Today it’s a catchall term for an unseen monster, same as the “boogey man.” It could get you, but nobody really knows how.

Known only from sites in southern Presidio and Brewster counties, “Big Bend Bold” rock art is distinctive for the size and style of its imagery, which is painted in black or dark green. The style was named by archeologist Tim Roberts, who argues it was created by Indigenous Big Bend farmers and foragers at the time the Spanish first arrived here.

Órale, the onda this week of Caló is bola. In Spanish, it means ball, but in Caló it has many different meanings. Bola means street, street life or anything having to do with streets, like mobs and prowling on the street. A once-popular expression for an errant son or daughter is that they went off to the bola. It also means a bump or crash, as in bolas— he hit the wall! Bola is also what’s used to denominate currency, like the dollar or peso. Ten dollars is 10 bolas.

Órale, the onda in Caló this week is the verb fisgar. In Spanish is means to harpoon or sniff out something, also to make fun of someone. In Caló, it means to be too nosy or to inquire about something beyond the point where it’s appropriate, like the vato who was fisgando about his jefito’s past and apañò some onda that made him get agüitado de amadres.

Órale, the onda this week of Caló is lilo. It’s Romaní for someone who’s crazy. There’s a similar term in Caló, chalado, but it means someone who has mental or behavioral ticks, not all the way crazy. A lilo is someone who is full on loco.