60 Hell's half acre

     March 8  This is going to be a special day, no wandering aimlessly for us. We are heading straight to Fort Worth TX. as fast as these Texas roads will take us.  We were going to see the stock yards area, didn't know what that was but we were game.
     We parked and headed right for the information hall, got our Fort Worth pins and was told we had arrived to see the trail drive that they still hold everyday.  We positioned ourselves on the street and the drovers came by with a herd of Texas Longhorns.  They were bigger than I expected.

    Fort Worth was the last major civilized stop for rest and supplies for the trail drives as they headed out on the Chisholm Trail to the rail heads.   Over four million head of cattle were drove thru Fort Worth.   As you might expect the young drovers with money in their pockets and the long lonely trail ahead visited an entertainment district  that became known as hells half acre.   When Fort Worth was added to the railway system a packing plant was built and the livestorck exchange area along with the stock yards.

Where's Walker?

      We did the walking tour visiting the stock exchange,  we had a sandwich at Billy Bobs the sandwich wasn't very good  probably because we were there at an off time.  I'm sure tonight every thing will be fresh.  It has a 100,000 square feet of bars, restaurants, dance floors, and  even an indoor bull riding arean, how did I not know about Billy Bob's?   One of the plaques there honored the bull "V61" out of the chute 900 times and ridden only 5 times, quite an athlete. Is it every guys dream to ride a bull just once?
    We went inside the White Elephant saloon, famous for Fort Worth's last gunfight and more impressive to me as  CD's saloon in the filming of Walker Texas ranger.
   In front of the Stock Exchange building they have a bronze statue honoring Bill Pickett a black cowboy and rodeo performer who invented steer wrestling, known at that time as bull dogging.   He had seen trained bull dogs capture steers by biting their noses, he started by leaping from his horse onto the running steer and biting the bulls lip and falling over backwards throwing the steer. ( I'm not surprised this method didn't catch on.)  He also appeared in a silent movie preforming his rodeo stunts.
    In the Texas trail Hall of Fame they have a star for Ol"Blue, a steer that rancher Charles Goodnight used to lead the herds on the trail.  He wore a bell, knew the trail and the rest of the herd followed him.   I still wonder how they got him back to the starting point for the next trail drive?  A little bovine history there.
    It had been a full day as we headed out of Fort Worth trying to beat the Friday afternoon rush of workers, with three quarters of a million people we hoped they all weren't headed toward Stephenville.
     In the middle of the night I heard sheep blatting.  Of course this came to mind. "I think I hear sheep , am I in Scotland??"  Maybe I've seen to many movies, still one of my favorite lines.  We found out there was a huge flock on the nearby ranch where they hold sheep dog trials.  These sheep were different than the ones I had seen as they all had black heads.  Let me rephrase that, their heads were black.   Also sometimes they use sheep to practice their roping skills.

     The ninth was rainy so we spent some time in the camper.   Maybe to much time, we had a light lunch accompanied by some chips and dip.   Ruthie was asking me if I was done with the dinner items and I said she could take the dip, as she tried to lift me out of the chair, Poor me, I must be a saint.  Besides playing cribbage to pass the time we had been discussing the camper we had pulled on this trip.  Although a very popular one, we started checking the internet for one that was easier to set up and take down.  We started communicating with a company in Oklahoma and some of their customers.  For our evening meal we headed back to the Hard 8 BBQ, kind of like that place.
     The next day was very windy, I had planned on changing oil and repairing the wiring for our heated jacket liners.   Glenn was nice enough to let me use one of the enclosed area's to get in out of the wind.  By using planks I was able to bridge the gap and climb up the foot to the cement pad.  I used some more planks to get the cycle high enough to change the oil.  Sometimes you just have to make do with what you have.  I found out my soldering iron didn't get hot enough to repair the connection so I headed into town.  A lot of people just turn you down flat with "we don't work on cycles"  but every once in a while you run into someone with an open mind that will at least take a look at what you are talking about.   As was the case at probably my 5th place.  It is called "Stephenville Starter and Electric"  1076 Glenrose Hwy, Stephenville TX ( you can see I was happy I stopped there.)  Dennis the owner who's wife is from somewhere in MN ( I hope he has learned where by the time she reads this.) came out took a look at it came back with  a soldering iron and solder and in seconds had it repaired.   No charge, thank you very much,  I hope they do well!
    Again last night the wind was very strong, a grocery store roof in one of the little towns we had toured thru came down, fortunately no one was injured.  The propane ran out again (come on Glenn, fill it this time.)  as the temperature dropped to 43 degrees, we might as well head north.   Our last day here we headed West to check out another BBQ joint (not as good as Hard 8)  and on to Dublin TX known for the first Dr Pepper bottling plant.  The story we were told was that some one wanted to imitate the aroma in the drug store in their home so they put all 23 flavors in a container and presto, there it was.  However that was in 1885 so there are lots of stories.   Lots of fun memorabilia here and a tour of the bottling area.  While in Dublin the home of Ben Hogan the famous golfer, we toured a small museum where I noticed a unique machine.  If you noticed your ancestors feet glowing in the dark, this could be the reason.   Notice the machine, here is the way it worked the innocent child with his new shoes on stepped up and put his feet inside the machine.  The shoe salesman and parents looked thru the viewing area to see if the shoes fit properly.   Even though there were many warnings about the danger of exposure to radiation it took many years for the machines to be banned. 
     Tomorrow we start toward home, will the weather favor us?   Sure there will be a little wandering.
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59 Natty Flats

     Our stay at the ranch has given us the opportunity to use it as a base to explore every direction and return home to rest relax and plan the next ride.   When we head out we might be heading to a historical site, something fun, a place to eat or just wandering.  It really doesn't matter as long as we are riding.
     On one of these little trips we went thru the small town of Itasca TX it stuck in our mind because Lake Itasca is the birthplace of the Mississippi river in our home state. 

     Itasca has approximately 1500 residents and as I was researching the population I found out they gave out over 31,000 tickets in an eight year period, "Speed Trap warning."   We noticed this abandoned? mini mansion next to the rail road tracks on the edge of town.  What is it's story?  We are always curious and fortunately have the time to check it out.  It seems to be very spacious with a drive thru court yard and perhaps separate residencies separated by the sheltered drive.  There were construction materials laying around and no sign of it being lived in.  Perhaps it is one of those multi generational residences.   Of course we drove back and across the tracks we seen a gentleman tending (perhaps gathering eggs.) by his chicken cages.  The cages happened to be next to the apartment building he lived in.  Maybe that's the way they supplement their income here?  Anyway he stopped tending his chickens long enough to answer a few questions from these passing strangers.   Evidently a man from Dallas was building it over an extended period of time, coming down on weekends and vacations to work on it.  It would be interesting to find out how and why he chose this location and if any interested parties approve. 
     Wednesday night in Stephenville is rodeo night at the Lone-star arena.  There are a lot of roping events and of course bull riding.  The bull riding always turns out to be a traumatic event for Ruthie as her caring and mothering side yearns to help the rider and clowns escape danger.  I try to keep a little distance and she ends up alternately striking and grabbing complete strangers while watching the event.  There also was an incident when she was apologizing to one of the fellas she had assaulted.  She found out one was from Bandera and the other from Stephenville and in all innocence she asked why both towns claim to be the cowboy capital of the world?   Way to go Ruthie, they used to be friends!  Here is my take on this controversy.   I think of Bandera as more of the old west with it's history in cattle drives and the beginning of the "West".   Stephenville as modern cowboys and rodeoing.   It is the home and birthplace of the Professional bull riding association and several national rodeo celebrities.  We moved to the other end of the arena as one of them said Bandera can't hold a candle to Stephenville.
  Lots of activity and things to watch.  It is no wonder a there are so many equine stars from Texas, tonight they had a special barrel race for the very young.  They all rode a horse however some were led by their parents. 

I told you it was big!

     On the seventh we headed North on 281 we hadn't ridden very far when we passed the largest rocking chair I had ever seen.  Of course we turned around ( no wonder we don't get very far.)  Turns out it was the Natty flat smoke house and Texas hill country furniture home of "star of Texas rockers"  We had one of their sandwiches and a bottle of pop. (Still use bottles here)   We toured the store and visited with the owner her  ancestors lived at Natty flats, an old community just down the road and hence the name.  Lots of interesting things including a $7000 carved walnut bathtub, you have to see it, beautiful.
     By the way this rocker is in the Guinness book of records.  

     At the northern end of today's ride we  arrived in Mineral Springs, as we were looking for a blacktop road heading West so we could make a loop and get back to our little home we noticed a huge building that seemed abandoned.   It was the fourteen story Baker hotel, originally build by the city to capitalize on the fame of their "mineral" water.  It was opened in 1929 with amenities unheard of at that time,  it had 450 rooms, two ballrooms a hydraulic system that supplied ice water to the rooms, lighting and fans controlled by the guests door locks.   It had many famous guests and was very popular.  It closed in 1963.  Now just a landmark, the stories it could tell. 
     At the NW point of our loop we hit the town of Thurber TX.  Their story is the states largest coal mining site for 30 years, they added a brick factory they literally became a boom town .   At one point it was the largest town between Fort Worth and El Paso, it was the first town in Texas to be totaly electrified, it was unionized and by the 1930's it was gone!  The discovery and use of oil was it's demise.
We ate at the Smoke stack restaurant housed in the last remaining Thurber brick  buildings.    It was full day and time to finish our loop and head home. 

58 Ranch Life

     February 27th
     We  packed up  and suited up for our trip to the ranch.    It was 46 degrees this morning,   when you are traveling outside at 70 mph the cold air chills you to the bone.  We found out after a few miles are jacket liners weren't heating up the way they should be.  We pulled into a ranch entrance to check out the problem.  I found a broken wire from the power source.  We could have found ways to repair it, we usually can, however with Stephenville a hundred and fifty five miles away we decided to tough it out and keep going to our destination.  Ruthie put on rain suit top to block wind,  I got out heavier gloves and we traveled on.  We could have slowed down but you know how I feel about wasting those extra mph, you can’t save them up.

Our home for two weeks, hope the truck is in Park!

     By the time we got to Brownwood we were ready to grab a bite to eat.    We had seen Scholtzkes on this trip and this was as good a time to see what kind of food they had.  Of course we were a little chilled so it was a good chance to warm up.  We found they are a fancy sandwich shop with specialty breads.  Very tasty.  I ordered some coffee to warm up , the coffee pot was empty.  The worker went to ask other employees how to make the coffee.  While I was waiting I purchased cookies to have with coffee.  She (worker) was getting everything together to make coffee, and then came back and said "I guess we don’t sell coffee" . I suggested that they not have it on the menu as an item to sell and that maybe they should remove the coffee pot.  ( maybe just a little impatient now, not like me.)  Another employee came along and said they would make the coffee.   We had now spent way to long for our lunch, "Lets just fill this (empty coffee cup I'm holding) with milk to save time.  She came back and said  “ they tell me we don’t sell milk.”   First day huh.  I will wait for the coffee.

    Back on the road we located a bank to get cash for our rental property.   When we arrived at Serendipity ranch they were just leveling our home,  the truck was still attached and would provide battery power until we were hooked up to electricity,  The electrician was supposed to hook it up the day before but of course not all things go as planned.  We met Glenn the owner of the ranch and got a tour of the ranch house , The original ranch house had been built in 1946 and the third generation owner had bulldozed the home and rebuilt to the original specs in the late 90's  5 bedrooms and four fireplaces, I think if we had a home like this we would never go out.
   This would be our home and base for our travels for two weeks, I think we are going to like it here.  We slept well that night, it was nice not having the concern of where we were traveling to or where we would be staying.  We heard some coyote's howling and Lopez our new neighbor greeted his horse friend Stormy several times.  I've decided he brays like you play harmonica, emitting his unique noise both by exhaling and inhaling.   We spent some time watching him (not much on TV)  Even though he was tiny Stormy seemed to rely on him for decisions and would follow him around the corral.  
The next day was windy (not surprised) so we spent some time inside, maybe to much time.  Ruthie said I made her feel paranoid, "pairanoid"  I said, she kept me quite busy, was interesting enough and I was very happy with just one of her, I know, we need to get outside more. 

  We rested for a couple of days made some short trips into Stephenville, interesting place they advertise as the Cowboy capital of the world, ( I think I've heard that before?)   Found a great BBQ place there called the Hard 8 They have a covered area where they do all the grilling.  You order at the grill and then walk in for your fixings . Very good, we will be back.   Several nights the wind was so strong that our little home made us wonder if we were going to be laying on the wall in the morning.
     Sunday morning we decided to try a cowboy church we had seen on the trip to town.  It was just a huge metal pole building with an arena beside it.  When we arrived there were some people on horseback sitting by the entrance sign, I thought "I hope they aren't the ushers or church greeters."    Turns out they were more for atmosphere and would wave to cars passing by or entering the parking lot.  The attendance was amazing.  The parking lot was full of trucks and the congregation was sprinkled with western hats, I felt at home.  A calming message, some gospel music, (made a note of "Come to the Water, would be great to hear Michelle sing this one) , good fellowship and end the service with "Happy Trails" does it get any better than this.  We found out the Arena is part of their Christian outreach, they use it during the week for everything from steer roping to barrel racing.   One of the items in the bulletin was Barrels and Bibles on Tuesday evening.  

     Sometimes in the evening we would hear a commotion behind our camper.  Wandering out there we found it was some of the ranch residents practicing "heading and heeling"  They rent Mexican cattle because they stay smaller,  when they are released from the chute one of the riders ropes the head while the other ropes the rear legs, quite a feat while running at full speed.  Interesting comparison where up north they might be practicing baseball or football after a day of work or school.  Here they get out their horse and practice arena events.  Some of these young people will go on to be rodeo stars.
      We  just heard Justin Trevino on the radio.  I guess they weren't kidding when we went to that dance in Marathon TX he is a national star.

March 4th,  The weather man was promising some warmth and less wind today, ( you notice I said less, after all we are in Texas.)   Today we ride.  We headed East with the wind behind us.  It was fun to see the huge ranch entrances,  we went thru a little town where Bonnie and Clyde had rented a room to case the bank across the street.  George Straight made a movie in the same town.  I think George was the winner..    
    We stopped in Waxahachie to take a picture of the beautiful Ellis County courthouse.

      In Palmer we stopped into Jenny’s cafe,  As we sat down I seen a large green frog (not real) that had popped up back  by the kitchen,  by the time she turned around it was gone.  I kept watching the spot so I could prove I wasn’t imagining things.  The waitress said we couldn’t’ go wrong with the Chicken fried steak,  we shared the meal ( their goes that frog back down again, to late to show it to Ruthie.) two vegetables and fresh cut fry's.  She was right, great home cooked meal.  There goes that darn frog again.   Starting to irritate me, doesn’t anyone else see it.  I took a picture of Ruthie beside the barbed wire display, don’t see that at home much.  The metal shears under the picture on the left are used for shearing sheep wool, now that I do remember from my youth.  When I stepped away from the table to take Ruthie's picture a  Police officer siting with friends made a  sudden movement and said he had heard an alarm ( must have been the camera opening up)  he teased me ( I think) that I was lucky I hadn't  made the move on his gun side. 

    Finally figured out the frog was linked to the front door,  every time it opened the frog made his mystery trip to alert the kitchen that someone came in.
      We had a nice ride home, full day with lots of western scenery, sometimes it works out having the GPS set on shortest distance and sometimes we end up on a bike path.
     The wind started coming up and their wind advisories.   Sometime in the middle of the night we ran out of propane, the inside temperature dropped to 50 degrees,  and no hot water.   During the day Glenn put on a used tank with the promise to get the others filled.   Tonight there was a freeze warning so he disconnected our water hose.   This ranch life isn't for sissies.

57 San Angelo

Feb 25th,
     Good Morning, it's my birthday!  The wind is blowing outside as well as inside due to the gap in the door frame. Now lets turn on the TV and see what the networks have to say?  Was there really a blizzard heading for the Texas Panhandle?
National Weather Service  "A historic blizzard struck the Panhandles  Monday, February 25 and continued through the afternoon hours. -- Within this band of snow, snowfall rates approached 2-3 inches per hour, thundersnow was observed, and extreme blizzard conditions were observed.-- The heavy snow and strong winds resulted in visibilities less than 50 feet at times for many of these locations. --- virtually crippled the entire area and made travel almost impossible. --- all roads in the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles were closed, including Interstate 40 from the New Mexico border to the Oklahoma border and Interstate 27 from Amarillo to Lubbock.  Conditions were so severe that Texas Department of Transportation crews were not able to work to keep the roads plowed. ---- Airport in Amarillo was shut down for most of the day.  19 inches of snow accumulated at NWS Amarillo along with a peak wind gust of 75 mph late Monday morning.  A peak wind gust of 77 mph was also recorded--- Unfortunately, many motorists were also stranded."
(CNN) -- Phillip Prince has been sitting in his tractor-trailer, stuck on Interstate 40 near Groom, Texas, for, Nine hours and four minutes, to be precise.---But then they came upon what the National Weather Service is calling "a crippling, historic blizzard.". "It was pretty nasty when we first got into it," he said. "But then it turned into a whiteout."-----he's never seen it this bad,--- The line of trucks is five to six miles long.---The good news is that it has stopped snowing. The winds are still 55 mph, but the skies are clear though the roads are not.
AMARILLO — The blizzard that hammered the nation’s midsection broke a 120-year-old record in Amarillo for one-day snowfall in February with 19.1 inches.
National Weather Service meteorologist Krissy Scotten in Amarillo says the snowfall total Monday bested a record set Feb. 16, 1893, when 19 inches fell.
     Okay, it is official, Mike and Cynthia are good Samaritans  I'm sure their friends and families already knew it.  Now they have two more fans from Minnesota.
   Sure it would have been a great blog post. "stranded in an Amarillo Blizzard" but we will pass.  We are safe and sound in San Angelo.  We will stay here for a few days while I celebrate my birthday, battle my ear problems and decide where to go next.
    I'm now self medicating with pain killers, swimmers ear drops, drops for ringing ears and hot packs, no stinking ear ache is going to spoil our trip.   And besides look at the huge candle Ruthie got me for my birthday!   Turns out it was one of those ear wicking candles,  she stuck it in my ear and lit it.  I don't know if she made a wish or not?  And just for the record I don't think it was effective. We stuck around the motel most of the day watched some TV, rested, worked on the blog and listened to the wind blow.
     We went to Logans Roadhouse for my birthday, nice time, ear ache was starting to be a little weary.  Pretty blustery as we made our way over to Walmart on the way home to pick up some TV dinners ( do they still call them that?)  Maybe they are just fast home cooked meals now!   At the motel we walked over to the attached bar and the owner bought me a birthday drink, nice people here!
      Jeanie from the Stillwell trail ride emailed this saying to me when I mentioned of all the riding we did and were still in the same state. 
. "the sun is riz the sun is set, and here I is in Texas yet".  Reportedly wrote by a hobo on the side of a box car in the early 1900's. 
     Trying to figure out our exit plan to get home, the weather is so unpredictable we don't want to get to far North to early.   We have a couple of business projects scheduled for late March so we need to think about heading home.  I did some  searching on Craigs list for rooms to rent and found an RV on a ranch by Fort Worth.  Checked with Ruthie, sounded good to her, she's easy.   Left messages for the ranch owner.  We made a deal to rent the RV for two weeks and made plans to head up to Stephensville where it was parked.  Evidentily it was not in use since they were going to get it moved and hooked up by the time we arrived.    
San Angelo:   Since we had some sun we decided to do a little site seeing while we were here.    Our first stop was Fort Concho,  here is Ruthie with ensign Mannequin, not my joke, the tour guides, all volunteers who want to preserve the history of the West.    Established in 1867 the buildings are an amazing example of frontier ingenuity,  they tried several different construction materials and finally used German stone craftsman from Fredricksburg to erect the structures.   This was another frontier fort manned by the buffalo soldiers. 

These men faced hardships every day just to survive and protect the villages and travelers.  It protected the Texas frontier for 22 years.   The buildings looked like nice residencies.  One of them had been converted into a museum of telephone communication.  Kind of neat to see an old telephone switchboard.  Just think, at one time every phone call had to be connected by a person.  On the wall of my boyhood home was a phone that you cranked a little handle to get the operators attention, you told her who you wanted to call and she connected you.  When a call came for my family our phone would ring two longs and a short. ( I think) That would also signal a curious neighbor on our party line that we had a call coming in.  For most the temptation was to great to resist listening in. 

We rode thru the historic downtown streets on our way to see Miss Hattie's Bordello.   Miss Hattie's Ladies used to entertain the gentleman of the area.  Evidently their entertainment procedures were not approved by the general public and was closed down by the Texas rangers in 1946 ( the year I was born.)  or 1952 depending on which brochure you believe.  The only thing for sure is it was closed today.   Beside the entrance to Miss Hattie's we seen a display in the window with beautiful shell's,  they seemed out of place.  Curious we went in. I'm sure we didn't look like potential customers however the warmth with which we were greeted and attended to will always give us warm memories.  Legend Jewelers knows how to treat people.  It turned out the shells were the source of Concho's pearls.  Native to the waterways of west Texas they range from pink to purple.  We stumbled on two Gems today.  A beautiful Texas pearl and a warm business. 
Tomorrow we head out for our ranch stay,  let's see if Craig's list treated us as well.