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I spent the Thanksgiving holiday at my father’s place in the hill country. Georgia and I headed out Interstate 10 on Wednesday afternoon fully prepared for horrific traffic getting out of the metro area, but we were pleasantly surprised at how smooth the trip went. I am a great person to travel with if you get cabin fever sitting in the cab of an auto as I stop frequently to empty my hamster-sized bladder. Of course, I had to stop at the Bucee’s representing the Luling exit. I always do. It is a wonderful haven to travelers of I-10 from near and far. I can’t believe I found this web site.

Anyhoo, where was I? Oh, yeah… so we arrived at the ranch around 7 o’clock and were greeted with open arms and a huge pot of homemade shrimp gumbo. My dad also bar-b-que’d an entire brisket and about 6 chickens. The ranch my dad and his sweetie run is Rosebud’s Flatrock Ranch. They have a website that I was supposed to help them put together, but I don’t know much of anything web-ish, so I’m slacking quite a bit there… and, in addition to that, I registered the domain name without the apostrophe-ess part of the name, so it turns out I’m slacking on the wrong name all together: rosebudflatrockranch.com

The ranch is focused on part time guided hunting of a variety of critters (which I don’t like) and part time hosting bed and breakfast goers in the Texas Hill Country (which is cool). We stayed in the B&B and really received the royal treatment the entire visit. I didn’t think about work at all and have to admit the four days away were a fantastic and much needed break.

Thanksgiving Day was quite traditional with a big turkey dinner and all the standard extras… dressing, green bean casserole, fruit salad, pies, etc. Sandy made an unusual side dish that was a corn pudding of sorts with oysters in it… very tasty. We ate, drank, and were merry. I don’t think I stopped digesting something or another the entire weekend. It was exhausting!

Friday was drove the back roads to Fredericksburg. We spent most of the day at Trade Days where my father has a booth selling furniture he has built. The weather was quite cold every day we were there… 35 in the mornings and up to around 40 during the afternoons. We ate at Auslanders for lunch… German to the hilt.

Friday night, my dad’s friends showed up with fresh pheasant to prepare for dinner. So leftover turkey was trumped by another bird rarely on the menu. Saturday we went to Christmas in Comfort in the morning and stopped for lunch at The Hen House. There was a great live performance of some local folk artists at the eatery. Our entire afternoon was filled with shopping the nifty ins and outs of downtown Fredericksburg. Georgia found a couch that she fell in love with… right up to the point we located the tag. Eleven grand… ouch! One of the neat things about Fredericksburg is the ability to walk the streets consuming alcohol. Can’t finish that bottle of wine with dinner? You just take it along on your shopping spree for desert. Splendid.

Sunday was low-key. Slept in… drove back to H-town. Lazy afternoon with some movie watchin’ with mom, Bob, and Nana in the evening. My fireplace has been going non-stop since I got home. I love having a fire crackling in the background. Henry was excited to see me and I was happy to be home. I just wish vacations didn’t pass so quickly.

I’m back at work today with a million things to do and a long afternoon ahead. I have a conference call around six this evening that will probably last a couple of hours. No fun. Anyhoo… I know this is a total cheese-ball post with all the kindergarden one-syllable descriptors, but I’m too tired and busy to put any thought outside the Big Chief tablet.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Salud.