A VACATION FROM A VACATION AND WEIGHT LOSS!

On Monday, April 20th I packed my suitcase and we left for my house sitting vacation. We left the Herbert Ranch and headed about an hour away to George and Joannie's home north of San Antonio On the way we stopped at the grocery store and I got groceries for the week.

We soon arrived and I put all my groceries away. We then drove to the other side of Lake Medina to help friend's of ours unload their moving truck.

Dirty Sally and 3 Fingers are Cowboy Action Shooter's and we met them last year in California at a shooting competition along with Mad Dog McCoy. Mad Dog left California last year and bought a home just a half hour away from Sally and 3 Fingers in the town of Medina.

We all helped and it went lickity split and soon we were done. Sally made us a nice lunch and we soon headed home.

Ralph stayed with me until the evening and left after the wild busy rush hour around San Antonio was well over.

Over this week, I walked a lot! George and Joannie have a nice treadmill on their back deck with a roof over it and this has made it nice because the sun is not beating down on me.

I walked 9 miles one day. 2 miles in the morning on the treadmill and 7 miles round trip walking to Lake Medina RV Resort. LMRV is where Ralph and I have been spending part of the winters over the last 8 winters. It is on the Leibolds-Grothues Ranch.

Most days I try to do at least 2 to 4 miles. This area is called "Hill Country". I have spoken about this area in our blog in the past. You either go up steep hills or down steep hills. Hill Country encompasses about 25 counties of tall rugged hills. This is why I did not bring my bike, besides the constant hilly terrain, the roads are winding and have no shoulders.

I am able to get a good work out just by walking on the roads around the neighborhood where it is quiet and traffic is light.

Every morning and evening I sit on the back deck sipping my coffee while enjoying my nice view and watching the hummingbirds.

I have planned on coming home every week on Friday's, so Friday, April 25th I left George and Joannie's home and headed to the Herbert Ranch. I have George's nice Toyota Tundra pick up to drive.

I did a couple of errands on the way home and picked up groceries that Ralph needed. We had a nice evening at home.

Saturday, April 25th, we got up at 4 a.m.  We were having a heck of a storm, lots of rain and hail in the area. The Herbert Ranch is 3 miles from the small town of Somerset.

We turned the TV on and it was showing the radar. We were in the red and purple area. We were really worried about the damage hail could do on our truck and RV. The newsman stated that hail damage had broken out house windows on a few homes in the town of Somerset.

Several times the rain pounded on our roof and I thought it was hail, but when I peaked out, even though it was dark, it turned out to be just heavy rain. We were lucky and the storm soon ended.

I was worried that I would not be able to get off the ranch. There were a few inches of water laying all over the ranch including the driveway. The roads are dirt and we are in the bottom land.

I really wanted to go to my WW meeting, so I packed up the little Toyota truck up and told Ralph if I spin what so ever, I will just stop and come back.

Well to my amazement I creeped up the grade of the driveway and made it to the ranch gate about a 1/4 mile away.

I got to my WW meeting and lost 2.6 pounds! My total in 14 weeks is 30.8 pounds! I now weigh 173.2. Just 9.2 more pounds to go and I will make the maximum goal that WW has set for me, but for my personal goal, I will lose an additional 12 to 14 pounds.

Everyone has heard of the BMI, Body Mass Index. For my height and my weight, I can be anywhere from 132 to 164. So I settled for a "Happy Medium" and that is in the low 150's. I was there about 5 years ago before I went "Hay Wire" and fell off the wagon.

I did some errands on the way to my house sitting vacation job. I will head back to the RV next Friday for a night.

On Sunday, April 26th, I walked to the "Cowboy Church" about 2 miles away. I have written about the Cowboy Church before. When we were camped at LMRV for the winter, I would ride my bike there.

I want to back up a bit and tell the following story: When I was little, my family would all go to Catholic church. All I remember is I was constantly having to "sit, stand and kneel" over and over and over again. I thought to myself when I get older, I was going to find a religion where you could just sit there the whole time!

Well I found it! It is Cowboy Church! Not only can you just sit there, but you can eat a fabulous breakfast there and during the service you can drink coffee!

I love Cowboy church in Texas!

Years ago when this church was raising money for their permanent building, they had church services under a big carnival type tent with open sides. During the winter time, folks brought along blankets to stay warm.

The church ladies got together and served up a huge hot breakfast. The band had a little stage set up and there were hay bales and chairs for people to sit on. Best of all, folks could bring their pets with them. Many people brought their dogs with them and on the 3rd Sunday of the month, folks trailer their horses to church for a trail ride afterwards. Hopefully on the next "3rd Sunday" I will have pictures to show of the trail ride.

Pastor Cliff as he is known, kind of reminds me of a "thinner" Wilford Brimley and he has a very distinctive speaking voice. He wears his white cowboy hat on stage as he gives the sermon. Matter of fact there are many cowboy hats in church along with the cowboys wearing their boots, spurs and big belt buckles. There are many ranches and working cowboys in these parts.

The ladies still get together and make a superb breakfast in the huge professional kitchen. These gals could easily be on the "Food Network". Next time I will get a picture of Pastor Cliff and the beautiful kitchen.

For a donation on whatever you want to give, you get a delicious breakfast. Many of the congregation bring a sweet to share and that goes on the dessert table. I of course did not partake in the breakfast, but maybe I will on the last Sunday that I will be house sitting.

 The mess hall is just beyond the doors that lead inside of the church. It is beautifully decorated with western and cowboy decor. Check out the Barrel Racing print on the wall.

Here on this sign you see the word SLACK. This is also a term used in Rodeo competitions. Slack is where there are more cowboys entered in a rodeo than there are slots for them to compete. When this happens, cowboys who are not scheduled to compete in one of the regular performances post their times or score during slack, which is generally held the morning of or the day before the rodeo.

Now for the beautiful Cowgirl rest room. Next week I will get pictures of the men's room.

I like how they did this. Painted flowers and grass on the wall and then added a real picket fence over the painting.

This paddy wagon and homemade rocking horse is inside the church itself. The inside of the church is huge. Before church services start, you will often seen little cowboys and cowgirls riding their trusty steed while their imagination gallops off into the sunset.

Take notice of the garage door. There are 4 of them along the church wall, 2 on each side. During Christmas Eve  services celebrations, they have a live scene featuring camels and they are brought into the church through the garage doors.

I hope next year to be able to see the Christmas Eve service.

If anyone gets a chill because of the AC and the plane propeller size fan overhead that makes a nice breeze, well there are nice blanket wraps to keep you warm.

The cowboy band plays wonderful music before services start. In the back ground you see the giant screen that keeps flashing pictures and the words to follow along. Also what I like is that the band sings traditional songs and then replaces the original words with religious messages. This day, they sung songs from Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson.

This is Ty, he is the Preacher Cliff's son. Chatting with him is Dan. Dan and his wife Betty are staying in their Motorhome at Lake Medina RV Resort.

Until next time.............Happy Trails to You!

VISIT WITH MOM, NEW AC, WEIGHT LOSS AND A BIKE RIDE!

On Monday, April 13th, we left the Comancheria Days Match at the Adolf Stieler Ranch and headed a short distance to the town of Boerne, TX. In a couple of days we have an appointment at an RV repair facility. We did not want to travel the 1 1/2 hours to the Herbert Ranch only to hitch up again  2 days later and drive to the repair facility.

Ralph's mom is in the nursing home in the town of Boerne and on Tuesday, Ralph went to pick her up and brought her to the RV Park. She loves the coffee we make because I sprinkle ground cinnamon over the coffee grounds and add one scoop of vanilla flavored coffee grounds to the pot. We also had a nice cinnamon roll waiting for her.

I took her for a walk around the park. We walked one lap and that was 7/10ths of a mile. At 87 she can walk very well and at a good pace. She could have easily walked another lap or two.

On Wednesday, April 15th we headed to the northeast side of San Antonio to Texas RV Repair for our appointment. This shop was highly recommended  to us by Debbie and Richard and we had previously stopped here a few weeks ago and spoke to Tony the service manager.

We have 2 air conditioners in our rolling home. One pooped out a while back and we knew it needed replacing. I don't think we have ever ran both our AC's at the same time. If it ever gets to that point where we need to run both, then it is time to cooler territory!

While relaxing in the waiting room, I was flipping through an RV magazine. I fell in love with this RV I saw and I immediately wanted to trade our RV in on this "Cherry and Sweet looking RV".

So I went up to one of the RV folks and said "Do you have any of these on the lot?" He said "no, they wouldn't last here in Texas".

 Here is Preston. He is the one that put our new AC unit in. We had a minor issue with the awning and it was a simple fix.

Our rolling ranch house was done by late afternoon. Tony the Service Mgr. told us we could stay the night in their locked lot so we did not have to deal with the major rush hour traffic. That sounded good to us! Tony gave us his phone number and the keys to the gate in case we wanted to go some where. How nice was that!

We left the next morning after the morning rush hour.

Coming home to the Herbert Ranch in south San Antonio. We are pulling into our little corner on the "Back 40".

Ralph on the roof putting an antenna amplifier on. It brings in more air channels in and the clarity is better.

On Saturday, April 18th, Loy and I headed to Weight Watcher's. I lost 0.8 lbs this week, but had larger loses the last couple of weigh ins. In 13 weeks I have lost 28.0 lbs and now weigh 175.8 lbs.

13 weeks ago I was in a tight size 16 that I could not button and zip all the way up and really needed
to be a size 18. I refused to buy an 18 and made up my mind that I needed to go back to WW.

I just donated my size 16 jeans and other big clothing to a thrift shop that is run by an animal shelter and proceeds go to shelter. The last time I tried them on I zipped and buttoned them and they would just fell off of me. I looked like those punk "I wanna be a gangsta" kids who wear their pants around their thighs with their underwear showing. My size 14 jeans are getting a little lose now.

Sunday, April 19th, Ralph and I were invited to do a 30 mile ride with the Hill Country Bicycle Club. Debbie and Richard who live on their ranch next door to Hoppy and Loy are members and they were hosting the ride from their home.

Here is the crew. When you leave the ranch you have to travel about about 3/4 of a mile to the paved road. This was a good place to get a picture.

Just about 4 miles away from the ranch, Richard had a flat. Within 5 minutes we were back on the road.

Now I did this route a few weeks ago to test it out. On that day it was an overcast day and I was able to do the ride just fine. However Ralph is not in the bike shape that I am in so we decided to do a shorter ride. We started off with the club but turned around at the 8 mile mark and that gave us 16 miles. It was a nice overcast day again and Ralph did just fine.

On the way back I stopped to get a picture of this mare and foal. When the mare saw me approaching the fence, momma felt a little uneasy and started to walk away.

Afterwards, we had a nice feast. Debbie fixed her pulled pork and homemade baked beans. I made homemade coleslaw. I got a head of green cabbage from Debbie's garden yesterday and added purple cabbage and carrots to it. I made the slaw dressing from a Bobby Flay recipe that had not only mayo in it, but sour cream in it too. I have tried several slaw recipes and so far I like this one the best.

It was a lot of fun. The folks in the bike club are very friendly and helpful. We actually had met several of them on a club ride a few years ago and another time when Debbie and Richard invited us on a camping trip and club bike ride at Lake Bastrop State Park near Austin, TX.

For the next 5 weeks I will be house sitting for good friends of ours. George and Joanie live outside Lake Medina RV Resort on the Grothues-Leibolds Ranch in Lakehills, TX. They have been long time friends with the Grothues-Leiblold family and that is how we met them years ago. It is about 1 hour from Hoppy and Loy's Ranch where we are now.

George is a wood scrolling artist and we have a lot of his work hanging up in our RV.

George and Joanie take a cruise every year. This cruise is a month long and they are driving to San Diego to board the ship. So I will be house sitting. I have use of their Toyota truck and will be going back to Ralph every 5 days or so for an overnight.

I am going to enjoy my vacation. I find it funny because I am taking a vacation from a vacation!

Until next time.................Happy Trails........................

COMANCHERIA DAYS- THE LAST DAY OF THE MAIN MATCH! "PART #5" (AND WE HAVE A WINNER!)

Continuation from Friday, April 10th.

Just before Friday nights dinner, we were treated to wonderful entertainment by Pistol Packin' Paula, a trick shooter, gun twirler, bull whipper and western dancer.

I had gotten a few pics of her off the Internet.

She went to Hollywood and went to stunt school to learn high falls, roof rolls, car hits and saddle falls. She even learned to be set on fire. Paula got interested in twirling guns and taught herself.

After graduating stunt school, she landed a job as a stuntwoman at Rawhide Western Town in Scottsdale, Arizona. This is where she began twirling guns professionally and became Pistol Packin' Paula, western performer. She is the only woman in the U.S. who twirls real guns. She twirls two .45 Cimarron revolvers.

Look closely, you can see her .45 in the air. I caught it perfectly. She also shot simultaneously both her pistols at two balloons. She faced the crowd and held her arms straight out from her side and shot the balloons that were placed several yards away. One to her right and one to her left! Pretty amazing!

Although her show did not include her horses this time, she does perform shows with her two horses Jake and Tonto.

She has won a couple of World Champion Gun Spinner title's. She has performed for many legends like David Carradine, Louise Mandrell, Melissa Gilbert, Howard Stern and several performers around the world.

She can snapped those bull whips over 700 mph to make them crack.

Here are just some of her many show credits: The Tonight Show w/ Jay Leno, Good Morning America, Wild West Tech on the History Channel, America's Got Talent, The Tropicana, Riviera, Hacienda and Star Dust Hotels in Las Vegas.

She plays Annie Oakley in special events and Wild West Shows.

On Saturday, April 11, was another overcast day, but at least the rain was holding off.

I got a chuckle out of this bumper sticker.

Here is one of my favorite shooters. He alias is Shotgun Hammond. He is in his 80's. Although he can't move fast, he usually shoots a clean match. He shoots his shotgun from the hip and hits the target every time. Everyone loves watching him do that. This match he just had 2 misses.

Here is our friend Mad Dog McCoy. He is a black powder shooter. Because the air was still and with the early morning fog, the air just wasn't moving and he had to wait for the black powder smoke to clear out before the firing the next shot. This unfortunately cost him valuable time.

Here is Lefty Rhodes shooting "Gunfighter" and using both guns at the same time, alternating on separate targets.

Saturday was better than yesterday for Lefty Rhodes, he shot clean today! So for the 2 day match, he shot 160 rounds and had 6 misses.

Now here are some fancy boots, spurs and spur straps. Notice the "DDD" on the right boot. The Cowboy model is Dirty Dog Dale.

When the match was over, we were entertained by trick roper Kevin Fitzpatrick, his paint horse Chief and his son Will.

Kevin and Will are from Bandera, TX. The town is known officially as the "Cowboy Capital of the World", and I have spoken often about this town in my travel blog. They are local celebrities and keep the cowboy spirit alive.

Kevin is a world champion trick roper, horse trainer and has performed all over the world, wowing audiences with his charm and skills, including a performance for the Queen of England. He has been hired as a full time tourism ambassador by the State of Texas. He performs at most of the guest ranches in and around Bandera.

 His son Will performed with the bull whips and also did rope tricks. The crowd was just in aw with this father and son talent team.

Kevin chose a victim from the crowd. In this photo he told her when to jump and she made it through the lasso.

And there were more victims from the crowd.

Afterwards we gathered around them and he took every one's questions. He told us that his father who now in his 90's put these Mexican coins on Chief's bridle, breast plate and the stirrups.

 I really enjoyed talking to Will also, he is a polite young man and you can see how proud his dad is.

After the show, we got cleaned up and headed off to the Awards Banquet that was held at the Farm Bureau building in Fredericksburg.

This is where everyone gets dressed up in their best "duds". I couldn't remember everyone's name, but the saloon floosie is Kathouse Kelli and she is from Australia! I loved her accent.

The cowgirl on the right is Cat Ballou, her SASS number is #50. Her husband is Tex and his number is #4. He was one of the founding members of SASS when it was started back in the 1980's. Ralph's number is #14206 and he joined in 1997. The numbers now are just over 100,000! I am sorry I can't remember the other ladies name.

                                                   Omaha John and Sophisticated Lady

Hawkshaw Fred and Hot Tamale

We had a wonderful catered dinner and then it was the awards. And look who won first place in his category of "Senior Gunfighter", why it is Lefty Rhodes! Out of 160 shooters he came in 15th place overall. Ralph was shocked because he did have 6 misses, but his times were fast. I guess the others had a few more misses.

Brushy Creek Bill, Crooked Bullet and Lefty Rhodes.

This is what Lefty Rhodes won. It is beautiful and will be cherished because of the history of this ranch. We are planning to hang it up on the wall.

This inscription was on the back of the buckle

Here is the grand daughter of Adolf Stieler. She is Becky Crouch Patterson. Her mom is Shatzie and she is in her 90's. Hopefully Becky won't mind me telling everyone this, but she is in her early 70's! I was shocked! Surely she is hiding the "Fountain of Youth" on the ranch. They are both lovely ladies and I sure did enjoy talking to them.

Becky's father and of course Shatzie's husband was Hondo Crouch. He was a Texas folk hero, humorists, writer, rancher, phiosopher, a poet, a music man and local celebrity. Hondo saw an ad in the local paper: "Town For Sale-Lock, stock and dance hall". The population was 3 and the price was $30,000. At the time, it was pretty much a ghost town. There was also a post office-general store.

Hondo inspired the hit song "Let's go to Luckenbach, Texas". He declared "Everybody was somebody in Luckenbach, Texas". He passed away in 1976, the year before Luckenbach Texas became a big hit by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.

Ralph and I have been there several times. Each day you can find someone strumming a guitar and singing either at the rustic bar or under the big trees.  Each weekend there are music events.

Do you see the beautiful scarf around Becky's neck? She designs them and I bought one to hang it up in our rolling ranch house. It shows a cattle drive and cattle brands. I also bought one of her two books she has written. The history and life of Adolf Stieler, his family, ranch life and the generations that followed. It is titled "The Ranch That Was Us". The foreword is by Willie Nelson. The other book is titled "Hondo, my father", I will get that one eventually.

This is one of our favorite annual matches. We know many of the club members from over the years and being on the Historical Stieler Ranch and getting to meet Shatzie and Becky just made it that much more special. This is one of the reasons why we love our life!

Until next time..............Happy Trails......................