Suburban Life and Freiheit Store

I spent last weekend in New Braunfels. On the way I stopped at a jackpot and was close to winning something, but my partner missed. The story of all team ropers who do not win.

This is what happens when you dally and the header does not stop kicking his horse...I count 6 blisters...can you find anymore?

Celeste is housesitting for some friends of hers and so we hung out in the suburbs. It was weird...really weird. The people she is housesitting for are nice and cool, but it was like we just stepped into someone else's life for a few days. If you have never experienced this phenomenon, you won't understand what I'm talking about.

Picture some family that you know. The picture yourself living in their house, with their pets, their furnishings, their everything. It was pretty different.

Saturday we decided along with some other friends to float the river. After getting to the tube rental place and seeing the line that would have made us wait for over an hour just to get the tubes, we were unsure. So we walked around the side of the tube rental building and had decided to just swim and hang out for a while. Well, the guy who owned the rental place was on the second story of the building bar-b-queing and he looked down and hollered, "Nunez!!". Ryan is a good friend of mine and this guy had met Ryan before. They exchanged a couple sentences and Ryan explained that we wanted to float, but the tube rental line was too long. It wasn't too long for this fella since he owned the place. In about 15 minutes, we had tubes and were on the river. Nice...thanks Ryan for getting us hooked up. Also thanks for running all those windsprints in football....the tube shop owner was a UT fan....

After floating we went over to a friend of a friend's house. The friend of a friend just happened to be Rodney Hayden. If you haven't checked out his music you should. http://www.rodneyhayden.com/. He is all honky tonk country and a really cool guy. He was cooking fajitas and we visited with him for a couple hours before he went to play his gig at Freiheit that night. It seemed like the place to be, so we decided to check that out.

Here's some of the crew from the float and Freiheit: me, Walker Strait, Bubba Strait and, Trey Strait.

The concert was great and Rodney put on a good show. It's not many people nowadays that will just rip into a good old Hank Jr. song and sing it like they mean it. He can and will. Not to mention his originals...it's pretty good stuff.

Me and Ryan.

All in all it was a great trip. I am headed back this weekend to get another dose of it. I think we might go to the lake this weekend. More pics on the way!

Your humble correspondent and Celeste showing the pearly whites.

We are having fun this summer.....

Walker

The Road and The River

I have been pretty lucky lots of ways in my life. I have been really lucky to come across some real "characters" in my life. They have taught me alot about perspective and how to see things from several different angles.

Sometimes though, I find wisdom in people I don't even know. That's when it's the most fun. Last week I was meeting with an older couple about some landman stuff and in the process of getting a lease signed the old man and I struck up a conversation. We visited for a while about East Texas and all the changes that have been happening out here. That was pretty interesting. Then he asked where I was from.

I told him a little town about 50 miles North of Corpus Christi called Refuree-o. He looked at me funny. He obviously had no idea what or where that was. I went on to tell him that it was a small town with a big road running through it. Most folks just passed on through and only stopped for gas and a Subway sandwich.

He sat and listened to me talk while his wife read some documents I had asked them to sign.

I went on to tell him that the little town is getting smaller all the time and that if someone could figure out how to make a little money off of the people traveling down the road, they could do alright. He agreed. We sat there for a minute while I looked out the window and stared at nothing. It was nice and hot outside and I was glad that I wasn't out in it at that moment.

He looked at me and said,"Son....the road is like a river....you gotta know how to fish it."

My jaw dropped. In a few minutes, they had signed the paperwork and I told them how much I appreciated it, then they were on their way. After they left, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about that. How cool.

There's always another way to see every situation friends. You can choose the view of life you like...it's up to you. I'm just out here learnin' to fish.

Walker

p.s.- If that line shows up in one of my songs pretty soon....don't blame me....he's the cool guy that came up with it....I'm just gonna use it....

What I have in Common with Competitive Eaters

Not all funny stories are about other people. Sometimes I provide enough material on my own.

I felt kinda queasy yesterday when I left work. I stopped by the Dollar Store and bought some Tums (TUM, TUM, TUM, TUM, TUUUMS...I hear the commercial in my head everytime) and grazed a couple of them down. I had a supper to attend in Nacogdoches at 6:45 and needed to leave the hotel at 6. I went to the room, set the alarm on my phone, and took an hour nap hoping to feel better when I woke up. Wrong.

As I started the 40 minute drive to Nacogdoches, I questioned whether I should even be going at all. I really needed to, so I pushed on. When I reached the restaurant and made it inside, I was full bore sick to my stomach. I ordered a glass of water and sipped it, hoping that it would stay down. I made it about 15 minutes and slipped out. I couldn't take it anymore.

As I strolled through the parking lot toward my truck, I silently hoped I would make it back to the hotel before I lost my cookies. Allow me to digress.

On some roads in East Texas, it's just a four lane road, with no "Shoulder". The road from Center to Nacogdoches is just such a road. Now I was trying my best to make it like I said. About 10 miles from Center I jerked my truck into the ditch and stepped out.

When Competitive Eaters, and there is an actual sport for this, are in the heat of battle....sometimes their bodies just can't take what they are doing to it. As a defense mechanism the body does what it is trained to do. In the Competitive Eating world, this is called "having a reversal". I am not a Competitive Eater, but I do have this one bodily function in common with them.

When I stepped out of the truck, I didn't even make it to the rear of the vehicle before Reversal Number One. After that, my number one concern was for my own safety. We are animals and when we experience something like I was, I think instinct makes us do things and think things to protect ourselves. My first thought was that I was going to pass out and fall into the road afterwards being run over. I closed my truck door and tried to make it around to the other side of the vehicle. When I reached the rear of the truck was when Reversal Numbers 2 and 3 took place. At this point instinct knew I was safe from being run over, but shame stepped in. I thought to myself,"These people driving by on the road don't want to see this. I should move." So I did. This time I made it to the other side of the vehicle and with one hand on the truck bed, the other on my hip and my eyes bugging out, I experienced Reversals Number 4 and 5.

"Where is this coming from?" "What did I do?" "How can it be this much?", are all things I remember thinking during the process, closely followed by,"Please make it stop....I'll never eat Pizza again...I promise". It was violent and was my bodies natural instinctive reaction. Like when the female Preying Mantis kills and eats the male after mating. I thought the Pizza I ate was killing me.

The good news is that I made it to the hotel and immediately assumed the fetal position on the bed. I did live to type this blog, although I'm still not 100%. I don't want to mention any names, but let's just say that there's a hut that sells pizza and they have lost my business for a lifetime. Now I have to go drink a bottle of water and tell myself it's gonna be ok again.


Believe me...it's a tough way to make your pants fit better,
Walker

The Frio is Low, We climbed High

Well....I left Concan, Texas this morning at 5:30 a.m. and drove back to Center. I made it here about 12:15. It was another wild weekend. I spent this one at the Frio River with Celeste and her family and friends. We swam, ate, and spent some good time up there. The water was too low to make a long float, although some of the crew did anyway and just had to paddle. One thing we did was make the hike to the top of "Baldy" and I really liked that.

This is where went went on our hike.

Here is the crew headed to the top.

Everyone needed to rest once we made it to the top.

The whole wild bunch, before we made our descent.

Across the river in those trees is where we stayed.

All in all, I would have to say that this was one of the coolest things I have done all summer. It was interesting to view someplace that I like so much from a different perspective. Go back up a few pictures and notice the buzzard gliding in the background just as high as we were. He was pretty respectful of our adventure.

Walker

Birthday Weekend

We had lots of fun last weekend. After the Dwight Yoakam Concert on Thursday night, we went to the lake on Friday and had a blast. I started learning how to wake surf....emphasis on "started" since I spent most of my time treading water waiting for the boat to come back and get me. It was fun though and I can't wait to do it again. Here's some pics.

Here's my buddy Ryan Nunez showing good form, while practicing to film a beer commercial.

Here's the Captain of the good ship, Barry Jaroszewski on the Bridge. He was the bestest boat Captain.

Here's my kind of Lake House...you can ski, check cattle, or whatever else you need to do.

This was the sunset view on the lake.

All in all, it was a great weekend. Lake, good food, friends, and fun....just what I expected.

Me and Celeste after a long, fun day.

Walker