Sing it Willy! (On the Road Again)

Further proof that moving west would be good for everyone? We drove to the ranch from Ginormousville today – and it didn’t suck! T was in a good mood. The drive wasn’t long enough for the kids to get really crabby. The hounds had gone ahead with the in-laws, so there was no juggling of Pomeranians while eating our lunch in the truck. Practically heaven. (Actual heaven would involve first class tickets to a tropical island with sugar sand beaches.)

The weather has been just gorgeous. The skies are blue and clear. There is a nice breeze, but there is just enough of fall in the air to keep it from being too hot. Temperatures are probably in the 70’s, which is downright brisk by Texas standards.

T and I took a drive all around the ranch in his 1947 Jeep yesterday evening. The sun was setting, so it was rush hour for the wildlife population. There were deer everywhere. (T tells me he only shoots the mean ones to make me feel better about eating them in the very near future – like tonight at dinner. This sounds like a bunch of hooey, but as it turns out, is actually true. Old barren does are often aggressive with younger deer and are singled out for shooting. Who knew?) We saw flocks of turkey on the hoof – that’s a sight to see. Those are some seriously silly looking birds! We startled a couple of armadillos into doing speed racer imitations. I couldn’t help but laugh at their awkward escape. Clearly these guys have been naturally selected for survival around cars. We even saw a pretty decent showing of duck and dove as we did a tour of the ranch’s watering holes. It was a great end to a nice day.

The last time we were here I scoped out a cool place for family portraits. There were red sandstone steps with a backdrop of huge prickly pear cactus. I got us all dressed up in coordinating outfits and trucked us all out to our location. T got some huge bug up his hiney and was pissy the whole time we were there. I am guessing it is because I asked him to a.) tuck in his shirt; and b.) take off his sunglasses (but not his hat!) for the pictures. He said that he thought the lighting would be best just after lunchtime, so we were there around 1:00. The sun was directly behind us – photographic suicide. Arg! Anyway, his mood poisoned the well so to speak. The kids picked up on his vibe and were not very cooperative. Both of the in-laws were armed with digital cameras, so we probably took +/-50 pix. I think we may have ended up with 2 where we adequately resembled a happy family. I guess we will do it again on our next visit. At a different time of day. Like I wanted to. Sigh.

We paid a family visit to the catfish pond. They are as huge as ever. Z delighted in dumping an entire bowl full of fish food on them. Q mostly ignored the fish and focused on his true love: 'driving' the Jeep. T is going to have to fight him to drive before he knows it!

All in all, it was a nice visit. I guess I wouldn't mind too much if we lived closer.