Old 2006 pics..STUCK on a Terlingua back road

This ain't all of 'em....all stray feral cats...if you feed them they will STAY and multiply!Old pic during cabin const...back when I had a paycheck and a nice road truck. I had a new friend that was a great help in getting this thing built (along with his brother Jackie)..."Ricky" was up on the roof doing metal roof decking. Ricky was a guy that spent his entire adult life in the TX State Prison system.

He had only been out a few months after 26 yrs in the Pen (since he was 18-19yrs)...and had some wild stories to tell about life "on the inside". He was amazed at things like cell phones, matchlight charcoal, etc...things we did not have when he went in....Ricky's ashes are spread out on the bluff near the cabin now...He met a gal he fell for hard in FTW, she was a crack whore-type and got him on it too. He was robbing a donut shop early one morning a year after these pics were taken....when he took a shotgun blast to the gut. Gone...Poof!!

During Caren's first trip down here, after working one day on the place, we took a drive down some uncharted back roads, and it was getting late in the day.


Well, sure enough....we came to a dry washed out ditch crossing and as any guy with a belly half full o' whiskey and a Powerstroke 4x4 Ford....you're not "bullet proof"...but you are "unstoppable!" (at least in your own mind). But we got temporarily stopped. I backed up a bit, and hit it harder in 4x4 and we made it through....but eventually we came to a shut gate in the road and had to turn around.

It was on this same washout, on the return trip, that we got stuck for good this time....reciever hitch ball stuck holding the rear axle up so we couldn't move forward. ..sunk the hitch down to where it was resting on a rock. Held in place....Me and Ricky dug away at it, but with the hitch on top of the rock...we weren't gonna get it out. And it was pretty dark by now...several miles off the paved highway and no houses in the area.

NO....Caren did not get run over, but she dove under the rear axle one one side and Ricky on the other trying to dig out the rock from the bottom of the hitch.
I was about 50 lbs lighter than I am today (only 280# then) ...but still too big to slip under the truck.

Finally they got the rock out enough to where I could plow away from the ditch.........here's my "happy dance"


Ricky and me celebrating....(I sure miss Ol' Ricky)

It was then I knew this gal was a "Keeper"..!

Back at the cabin

Here's me captured in a tender moment with my grand nephew (?...my niece's kid)? a couple of weeks ago.


ADIOS FOR NOW....Y'all.

Bigfoot

Trip to Bryan/College Station last wknd..

Wish I could remember to load these pics in reverse order as blogger puts last uploads at top.......anyhoo... Sunday AM, before we headed back north to FTW, my son and I designed and he made this sign for the cabin with the plazma cutter. Design on the computer and the machine does the rest.

Here's the end of a very heavy welding table he made while we were there..1" thick steel top planks...with a built in bottle opener on every corner (can't see in this pic)
And this is his new plasma cutter hobby toy...could be a good sideline biz.(cost 1/2 as much as my first house)...but he saved up and paid for it himself.
He got this $3000 (new) USA made Quincy compressor on Craigslist for $800. Still gotta run the 220 power for it.
And here's his camping rig...used to be my truck but I handed it down...4x4, Powerstroke, 5 speed. He custom fabbed rear stabilizer outrigger supports to chain camper down to frame, same with special running rails with front tabs for hold down chain and turnbuckles.

He's a good, no a GREAT kid....27 yrs old, level headed, smart, hard working, focused and very mechanical...Don't know where he got all that...cause I ain't nothin like that. Guess it's true and about things "skipping a generation"..?? Caren's son is a great kid too, but she didn't get a chance to take any pics.

It's the dog days of summer, only thing is our "dog" (Jack the ripper)....stays inside all day, and only sleeps,naps,eats,craps...more like a stuffed Pug. While the army of Kats and Kittens attack me like a Jihadist movement when I go out, as they are always hongreee,!! These are all half wild cats, fur full of grassburrs and they love to eat grasshoppers and lizards. (pics later).

Caren and I made a quick trip to Bryan/College Station last wknd. My son lives in Bryan, got his Aggie Degree in Const Mgmt (no jobs in that field now) and works as an AC tech (5-6 yrs now with this co....10 yrs total as tech). Caren's younger son goes to TAMU and she got to see him a couple of times too.

Looks like South Brewster Co (parts of it anyway) got some rain lately...maybe the rainy season is just beginning to start....but it usually gets going in late July.

Seeya later gator.

Largefoots