Sat, Jun 11, 2011

Saturday, June 11, 2011

We love the hill country of Texas.  It is a farmer/rancher’s heaven.  It can be hot, dusty, and dry with little humidity.  Please place the emphasis on the lack of humidity. – Donna Downey

The benefits of lower humidity cannot be overemphasized when you are dealing with hot temperatures.  The primary benefit is that a nice dry breeze is just that… nice and dry.  If you are an early riser around here it is possible to be outside and be quite comfortable even when the temperatures are approaching the high nineties, especially if you can find that dry breeze and some shade. 

We found just such a spot north of Llano after eating breakfast at the motel.  None of the places where we can take the pups swimming in the Llano river have any shade so we settled for a spot without the water option.  We sat and enjoyed the breeze while they played until we were all sitting and enjoying the breeze.   It was a relaxing morning.

We decided to have another BBQ lunch in Mason at Coopers.  We had made a pretty good loop and were headed toward Mason from Brady which is about 30 miles north of Mason when we encountered a volunteer fire department truck followed closely by a large water tanker.  As we left town we could see a sizeable fire in the distance.  We figured it could easily have been started by someone throwing a cigarette out on the side of the highway or even by just someone pulling off in the tall dry grass.  As we got closer it indeed had started on the side of the highway but had quickly moved thru the dense cedars over several ridges.  The wind was moving to the northwest and the fire quickly moved along with it. 

We made it to Mason and enjoyed another lunch of brisket and jalapeno sausage and then headed out to the Mason arena to watch a little bit of a Youth roping.  We found a good parking place right next to the arena where we could watch from our Jeep.  The temperatures had climbed very close to 100 and it seemed so odd to see people riding in long sleeve shirts and warming their horses up with neither the rider or the horse sweating.  Again, one of the benefits of that low humidity and dry breeze.

From there we headed back up the highway toward Brady and points north.  As we approached the area of the fire it appeared the vast resources of men and equipment had been able to get the worst part of the fire under control but they were still busy putting out hot spots and using a motor grader to cut fire lanes across the smoldering hillsides.  As we approached one of the firefighters vehicles (a silver Jeep just like our Jeep), I noticed the left front tire was on fire.  We drove further down the line of vehicles until we found a firefighter and informed him about the Jeep.  We backed up the hill to the vehicle and made sure he didn’t need any assistance.  We were lucky (as was the owner of the Jeep) we saw the tire burning because it was parked at the front of the line and there was no one nearby to notice.  I few more minutes and I’m sure the fire would have moved to the engine and then it would have been bye bye Jeep.  At least now, the owner will only have to buy a new tire.

We had tentatively decided on staying in Stephenville, Texas tonight and had a very nice drive up Highway 377 to get there. 

As we passed thru the small town of Dublin, Texas we were treated to a very neat old truck.  Dublin is the home of Dr. Pepper and they were celebrating the 120^th birthday of the soft drink.  As part of the celebration they had a neat old Ford delivery truck loaded with wooden cases of Dr. Pepper.   So the three shots I took of this truck were the only photos for the day.  I seem to have taken the day off so to speak.  The celebration in Dublin had lasted for about four days and had a bunch of events but was just winding down as we drove thru town.  They had obviously enjoyed celebrating this local business and all it had done and was continuing to do for this Texas town.

We arrived in Stephenville, got a room and as I got ready to tackle the huge number of photos I took today (3), Charles headed out to fill up the Jeep and pick up a few ribs from Hard Eight BBQ. 

We are well tonight.  We hope that y’all are too.

Peace, Hope & Love,

Donna, Charles, Paris & Dodger