Hope you had a good one....

....we did. Our little vacation to West Texas had a leisurely start Wednesday morning. We had a few unsuccessful stops to make leaving town and decided to make more stops along the way. That's one of the good things about living near Dallas/Ft. Worth. If you don't find something in Dallas and you are headed West, you can be almost certain they'll have the same store in Ft. Worth, about 30 minutes down the line.

Jeff knows Ft. Worth probably better than what Jolea did. He's got a friend living over there and they had just been to the part of town we were going to over the previous weekend to watch a BMX stunt show in Cow Town. So he suggest that we have a late breakfast at one of his favorite places, Ol' South.






At 10 in the morning this place was pretty full. This was no Beef House by a long shot. They place had windows! Windows that were not covered by a greasy film and a smoky tattered window shade. There was smoking, just in the larger back dining room. We sat up front by the windows.

We ordered our breakfast and then I noticed the Daily Special menu on a card on the table. Notice that the standard special is of course the standard anywhere in Texas... Chicken Fried Steak. Jeff says it's huge and hangs off the plate. Those are pretty good prices!



The food is here! Jeff had sausage patties and scrambles eggs with two Cat Head biscuits. I had the silver dollar pancakes. I wasn't very hungry and knew this would swell up and hold me until we got to the Ranch.

After breakfast we made a stop for a couple of bottles of wine, that turned out to be crap. Jeff needed to stop at Cycle gear for some goggles, he was planning on some back roads (more like cow trails) driving on his pit bike.

Then we were back on the road. It was about this time that we got a phone call from Jolea, she said they were finally leaving port in Ft. Loiterdale, I mean Lauderdale. They were headed north to Newport and we wouldn't hear from her again until Sunday. ( No news is good news right? We haven't gotten a call yet, I'm sure they are sleeping in after a long haul like that.)

Back on the road, just picture mile after mile, hour after hour, three or so hours to be more like it, of open prairie, mostly just grass and a few trees, rolling terrain. Occasional small towns. The mesas are starting to rise in the distance, we are climbing in altitude... a very subtle climb. Same old, same old... I could drive this road blind folded as it's I-20, the inner state highway back to my home town. But then I noticed a billboard I'd never seen.... just outside Strawn Texas. We were looking for a convenience store to get Jeff a drink with a little pep in it since he was driving. We took the 4 mile detour into Strawn to a olive oil soap factory. The lady offered to sell it to me, not just the 3 bars I bought, but the whole factory. Unbelievably, she'd been in business for almost 20 years. I guess she had a lot of online business because we didn't see a sole in this town. Hmmm, I wonder if the 100+ temp out there at 2:00 had anything to do with that. The oil and gas industry used to keep these small towns alive, but I don't know what they live on now. I bet these people have to go into Abilene to work.

Then we passed this guy, hauling what looked like a radioactive pig. I meant to ask my brother what this was, I'm sure it has something to do with X-rays for underground gas drilling. It's not everyday you see radioactive signs on trailers on the highway, but then again we are in West Texas. You can see lots of weird stuff out there and never get too far off the highway, mostly it's the people.

Did I mention it was pretty flat out there? Now you know why Tornadoes can really build up some speed. We saw quiet a few dust devils blowing. Those are always fun to drive through.

So this is how they make their living out here.... forget about driving into the big town. Just put up a few of these on your land and let the wind blow in about $1200 per month/per windmill. You can still farm in the land around them.




I guess everyone is getting on the band wagon with these things because there were 100's more out there from when I was last in that area.

I think it's a great idea. Farmers are some of the poorest paid people in our country. Why not harvest the wind.


This post is getting a little long and I still have 3 more days worth of pictures to show you, so from here on out I'll just add captions. I know you won't miss all my wordiness.

Greeted by a Longhorn. By the way, I think my niece has named all the cows. This is the same child who had a baby elk in her living room at her house in New Mexico a few weeks ago.

First things first, unload the tiny dirt bike (he left the big one at home) and go for a spin.

Get your fishing poles ready.... a fact about my sister, if there is water nearby she's going to fish in it.
As with all fishermen, it's a contest, first catch of the day (size doesn't matter.)

Nita with the second catch of the day.And I had the third catch of the day. This would have sent Jody to the house with the heebies.
On the way home we saw some of Michael's horses and beautiful mules. The dark one in the back is a mule also.
Nita getting a little Stinky lovin'. Stinky is the dog, gotta have a dog on a ranch.

This is a good place to stop for today... it's already hot out here and there are tons more pictures to come. I'll post more from Thursday tomorrow.