The terrain around here gives me a heart pounding workout. I have a walking app on my iPhone and it shows not only the mileage and calories, but also the elevation. These roads climb a couple hundred feet in a very short distance and back down you go again only to go up again.
You have to look, but the road is going over these hills.
Along my way, I saw this little centipede walking around. For what ever reason, my sister and I have never been squeamish and have always liked insects, spiders and reptiles. I am sure a lot of people find them creepy, but to me they are just neat and fascinating insect.
Don't tell Ralph I am telling you this, but he is deathly afraid of spiders. When he sees one in our rolling home, he yells for me. (That's embarrassing isn't it?) Well I catch it in a Dixie cup and slide a piece of paper between the cup and wall and then put the spider outside.
You can see the roads I walk over in the distance. I wear a heart monitor that shows my heart rate and calories burned along with the percentage of fat burn. This has been a very good tool for me.
I had visited several of the "Winter Texans" as the local folks call us in these parts. Several were having some little medical issues that extended their stay, but they hope to be "hitching up" soon.
Just below the sign with the name of the ranch, it says it was Est. 1982. It is a Texas Century Ranch as you can see.
Some of the ranch livestock.
When I got back to George and Joanie's home, my GPS walking app said I did 6.72 miles!
Ralph called that afternoon and told me about his close call with the truck. Ralph and I have the same driving habits. We drive in the slow lane, don't speed and are constantly on the look out for erratic dangerous drivers. We try to look ahead for potential problems before they happen.
When Ralph drives and I am riding shotgun, I will pull down my visor and use the mirror in it as my personal rear view mirror. I let him know when a young punk is coming up behind us at a high rate of speed zig zagging from lane to lane. I don't mind saying I am a big side seat driver and it has saved us a several times.
Recently I purchased a "Dash Cam" because down here in Texas, they seem to have more accidents because of the high speed limits, drunk drivers and young reckless drivers. Texas is 2nd in the nation for drunk drivers. Every morning on the news we usually see horrific crashes and many are drunk driving related.
Well Ralph said he was in the slow lane on Highway 10 which is a major interstate and is 2 lanes. Well a Corvette blew past him in the fast lane. About 20 seconds later, Ralph saw a cloud of dust and debris fly high up in the air and land all over the lanes. He had to straddle several pieces and go around several pieces by way of the shoulder.
He said he did not see the actual accident happen, but did see the two cars that were involved. He pulled over to check on the drivers and didn't see anyone with serious injuries. Several other folks pulled over to help also.
That evening it was on the news and the highway was a mess for several hours. The young Corvette punk was arrested for reckless driving. He had run into the back of a man driving an SUV. This sent the SUV rolling into the median where he collided with a garbage truck traveling on the frontage road that paralleled I-10. The SUV driver was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Of course this caused a back up of "rubber-neckers" on the other side on I-10 Westbound and because people tailgate and don't look up ahead this caused three 18-wheelers to collide with several cars and one person was killed.
After a bit, Ralph got back in the truck and when I get back to the RV I will check on the dash cam footage to see if it can be used. Ralph does not know how to do "play back" but at least he knows how to turn it on.
On April 28th, I got a walk in on the tread mill and goofed off all day until I headed out with Annie and Chuck to a movie screening that evening in the town of Boerne that is about a half hour away.
Annie and Chuck were part-time RV-er's and we met them 10 years ago while staying the winter at LMRV. They sold their home in the mountains of Colorado and now live here in the same town as LMRV and where I am house sitting.
We went to see the movie that is loosely based on Pistol Packin Paula. I wrote about her a couple of weeks ago in my travel blog. She put on a demonstration with her skills of gun twirling, bull whipping, rope twirling, trick shooting and foot stomping wild west dancing at Ralph's shooting competition.
Most of these pictures here were taken off the big movie screen. Before the movie started they showed pictures of Paula, Pepper and her horses.
She uses two nickel-plated .45-Caliber Cimarron revolvers.
She competed twice in gun twirling events and was the only female competitor against many men. Needless to say she won the annual event 2 years in a row. =:)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The movie is called "The Adventures of Pepper and Paula". It is a fun and heartwarming family movie and although it is a story, there are several true parts such as Paula living on the Enchanted Springs Ranch in Boerne, TX. where it was filmed. She and her Blue Heeler Cattle Dog, Pepper became the stars of Enchanted Springs Wild West Show.
The story line is based about a ranch trying to make money to keep the Wild West show going and everyone employed, but soon the economy goes south.
Chuck and Annie and a few others we know also acted in several of the western shows at Enchanted Springs Ranch. Tourist from all over the world come and visit the ranch. The ranch is an active western movie set, animal park and working ranch. They put on skits with scenes from the Wild West that include bank robberies, gunfights, fist fights, horses and stunts and of course Pepper.
Paula started out as a stunt woman in Hollywood and has been in many movies where she has fallen off horses, fallen from buildings and set on fire. Paula is also a horse trainer and teaches her horses, Tonto and Jake tricks for the show.
Chuck and other folks Ralph and I know also starred in the Adventure's of Pepper and Paula" movie. It was fun to see people you actually know and to see their names listed in the credits.
Chuck and friends belong to the Bandera Cattle Company and they reenact cowboy gunfights in the town of Bandera for the tourists. I have written several times in my travel blog about Bandera. It is officially known as "The Cowboy Capital of the World". Tourist from all over the world come to visit Bandera. You often see cowboys riding their horses to town. There are hitching posts with water troughs throughout the town for their horses.
In 2008 Paula was involved in a horrific role over accident with her truck and Pepper was in it. She had hit a deer and Pepper ran off to get help. He kept barking at the first person he saw and luckily that person followed Pepper to where Paula was. Paula was airlifted to a hospital where she edured months and months of recovery and therapy.
By 2009 she was back in the saddle and headed to Las Vegas to compete for another World Champion Gun Spinner title. Competition was tough but she won her second world championship and was presented with an award by the Wild West Performing Arts Society.
She has many credits to her name such as performing at many hotels is Las Vegas, the Tonight Show, America's Got Talent, the Western Channel, Fox News, Wild West Tech with David Carradine and many others.
The DVD is coming out in May at Walmart and I will surely get myself a copy. It was a fun night and I got to talk to Paula and pet Pepper after they did a Q & A on stage for the crowd.
It is hard to see in the picture on the right, but as they were are on stage, the big screen was constantly showing dozens of pictures of Paula and Pepper. If memory serves me right, the little dog is named Taco. Pepper is now 10 years old. The dog that portrayed him in the movie is actually a border collie named Uno.
What another fun day in our life! Until next time.............Happy Trails to you!
By the way, Ralph is doing well being a bachelor. He has even lost some weight that he needed to.
It is good that you are taking all sorts of measures to protect yourselves from the dangers of drunk drivers and vehicular accidents in general. Installing that dash cam was a great decision. Should you be involved in an accident, you can somehow see what happened beforehand, and who was at fault. It can also be a good record of note-worthy things that happened on the road, like that car accident you witnessed. You might even help out the police in such matters, should they need more evidence as to what had happened that day. Anyway, I hope you guys are well. Drive safe!
ReplyDeleteLeticia Holt @ Kim E. Hunter, PLLC
That's unacceptable, Jenny. People should pay more attention to this elimination of the Independent Living Fund. These are things that the disabled cling onto in order to support themselves from day to day. With social spending being slashed left and right, it is important that we secure these mechanisms for disability and social security. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the matter.
ReplyDeleteTyron Tanaka @ Low And Canata