Thur, June 9, 2011

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Yesterday the temperature in west Texas climbed to 111 degrees.  The only saving grace was the extremely low humidity.  You are still apt to die from the heat but you will not be sweaty. – Donna Downey

We actually had a bit of a plan for today’s journey.  We planned to eat lunch at Cooper’s BBQ in Mason.  The route we would take to get there was not mapped out so we left Brady headed in the general direction of Llano (to get a room for tonight).  That lasted about ten minutes, when we saw a dirt road we like to take.  We called Llano, got our usual room and headed down the Blackjack road.  We took several diversions on a couple of short roads and actually found one we had never traveled. 

It was there we took the first photo of the morning.  It was a snake crossing the road.  He was, as you can see in the photo, a light tan and upon closer look (out of my Jeep window) he was non-poisonous.  He stopped long enough for me to take two quick shots and then he took off thru the grass… very quickly.  He was the fastest snake I have ever seen.  I looked him up when we got to the room and he seems to be a coachwhip which is a very fast moving snake that eats primarily lizards, crickets and other small bugs. 

At the end of this short crossroad we turned onto the Old Katemcy Mason Road and we passed one of our favorite ranches.  It is the Circle T Cutting Horse Ranch and besides selling cutting horses they also sell Bermuda horse hay.  We have been in horrible drought areas since we left Colorado so to see their beautiful irrigated green hay fields was a real treat!  We stopped by a pasture where they had about ten yearling fillies turned out, watched them for a while before taking a few photos and moving on down the road.

By the time our wayward route reached Mason it was time for lunch at Coopers.  Besides the great mesquite smoked meats we almost always find some nice Texans to visit with while we eat.  Today, we had a large smoked pork chop, a nice piece of brisket and jalapeno sausage!  We also met three nice older people from Midland, Texas. 

After a very filling lunch we headed out down Farm Road 1871 toward the Llano River for the pups to have their first swim in several days.  Due to the severe drought, everything is very dry and brown so the crystal clear waters of the Llano are like an oasis in the desert.  We would end up making up for the missed days by having two more swim sessions… another one in the Llano River and then one in the James River. 

Except for a couple of short periods we were still able to ride with the windows down most of the day.  By late afternoon we had made it to our room in Llano and decided to just crash, take a nap, do a little reading and cool for the rest of the day. 

We are cool and well tonight and hope that y’all are too!

Peace, Hope & Love,

Donna, Charles, Paris & Dodger