Texas Trip Ranch Highlights
My trip to the Silver Spur Guest Ranch in Bandera, TX, was a hoot. Even though I’m deathly afraid of flying. Editor-in-chief of TWRP, Rhonda Penders, drove me to the ranch from Austin with her hubby and youngest son, CJ. By the way, her son is not only the shipping and receiving officer for TWRP, but he’s a Civil War buff and reenactor! What an awesome guy. That alone would have made the trip worthwhile, but there were more great things in store for me at the ranch. The best part was meeting my own editor for the Crimson Rose line, Johanna Melaragno. I spotted her right away in the main lodge and got a big hug, and I think I ate pretty much every meal with her.
There she is on the left, with Bella the ranch dog.
Before the trip, Johanna promised me a trail ride, so we signed up for one first thing Friday morning and I wrangled Rhonda’s hubby and son CJ to come with us. I told CJ we could pretend to be Yankee cavalry out on reconnaissance duty. (Hey, it was cool to us.) When we headed out that morning right after breakfast, it was overcast and drizzling. The weather gods must have known I was from Vancouver, and that my lily white skin couldn’t take the heat 🙂 Here’s a shot of the chief wrangler, tall David. Does he look like he stepped out of a western movie or what?
They paired me with a horse named Diesel, and he was a sweetheart. Jo’s horse’s name was Willie, and he was not a sweetheart. In fact, he kept biting poor Diesel’s rump throughout the hour long ride. (I think Jo secretly made him do it.)
The area was much greener than I had anticipated, and the cool weather made it more enjoyable than being out in 90 degree heat plus humidity. 
We saw jackrabbits and listened to the cooing of Morning Doves as our wrangler, not-so-tall David, told us all about his various war wounds from his past as a bronc buster. I just have to say that as an RMT, I was appalled by the list of the man’s injuries. He’s lucky to be alive, let alone walking, and I’m sure by the time he hits sixty, he’ll feel every one of those broken bones all over again. Think real cowboys are tough? They are. Not-so-tall David rarely went to the hospital for treatment unless his injuries were life threatening. Enough said, right?
We rode up over the hills and through some scrub brush, and lo and behold came across some Longhorns hanging out in a mesquite thicket. The ranch owner keeps them as pets, and they’re as tame as lap dogs. Barely blinked at us as we rode past.
Here I am with two of my roomies from the Butch Cassidy cabin, Mina Khan and Elizabeth Pina. We slept on the squeakiest bunk beds ever, but it was still a fun weekend.
On the Saturday morning, the owner loaded all of us into a flatbed wagon and towed us with his pickup out to a spot where the staff had set up a cowboy breakfast at the edge of a pasture.
On the way we passed a herd of “Texas harleys” as I called them (I said it in fun the once, but the name stuck with our group). They came right over to our wagon when the ranch owner took out some treats for them.
Here’s my editor, Johanna, with me and “she-who-shall-not-be-named” (who’s obviously camera shy), full of huevos rancheros prepared over an open-flame grill. We’re all currently working on a secret project for TWRP Scarlet line. Yee-haw! I’ll let you know if it gets contracted. 
Right after breakfast, a professional roper came out to do an act for us.
Since it was Rhonda’s birthday (and TWRP’s 4th birthday, by the way), she got chosen for the demonstration. Here she is posing for a trick where the roper uses a bullwhip to break a piece of uncooked spaghetti she’s holding in her mouth. Pretty brave, huh? But we expected nothing less from our fearless leader.
Here’s me and the Boss Lady. Rhonda was a total sweetheart, and I’m so glad I got to meet her and her family.
And finally, here’s the end of the roping demonstration. The horse’s name was Chief, and I swear he was almost asleep the entire show. The thing barely twitched while Kevin stood up and jumped on the saddle. I was impressed. The horse I owned as a kid would have left me as a smear on the nearest tree if I’d tried anything like this! Anyway, you’ll see RJ there with the denim shirt. Who knew Snarky isn’t so scary after all? She’s got an incredibly lively sense of humor in person (just not via e-mail), and man is her wit sharp! But I agree with Rhonda–don’t mess with her 🙂
Snarky drove myself and another author to the San Antonio airport on the Sunday morning, so she got to know me a bit. All in all, a great trip. I’m so glad I sucked it up and got on that plane!
I’m Still Alive
Yesterday was…interesting. It hasn’t been all that long since I’ve flown last, but things have definitely changed. Maybe it’s due to the Olympics a couple months back, but man, the security at Vancouver Int’l Airport is something else. We now have automated check-in where you have to scan your passport and enter all your info into a computer. I didn’t know my step-sister’s address, and you now can’t enter the US without giving the address of your final destination, so they weren’t going to allow me to check in. Trust me, after only an hour’s sleep the night before, my stress levels were already pretty high.
With that crisis averted, I went through security. Three times. They scanned me, all my clothes and belongings in my carry-on, then put me in a body scan booth where they check for hidden images and explosive residue. Then they swabbed my hands and socks, shoes, laptop and bag to check for more residue. I even got patted down after all that.
Jeez, talk about overkill. On the plus side, I felt like they’d made a good effort at keeping any crazies off the plane, so that helped a fraction.
After filling out a declaration form (even though I hadn’t gone anywhere yet), I finally cleared customs and an hour later got on my flight, took my little Ativan tablet and willed it to kick in. No sooner had the pill melted under my tongue than the pilot came on the intercom to say that we had a broken plane. Some sort of fuel gauge malfunction they were double-checking with maintenance.
What???
Turned out it wasn’t a malfunction; the maintenance crew had shorted us a thousand gallons of jet fuel. Awesome. I’m feeling ever so secure strapped into my seat in this damn little tube.
Not only that, but our flight was delayed forty-five minutes, exactly the amount of time I had in Dallas/Fort Worth to get on my connecting flight. When we landed four hours later without incident, they let off eight of us trying to connect to Austin, and we all sprinted through the airport up to the trains to get to the terminal on the opposite side of the airport, then ran the whole way to the last gate. But no dice. They’d left without us. Bummer.
So they put us all on a later flight and we walked back to the other side of the terminal to wait, where I called my step-sis to tell her I’d be arriving late.
Only that plane was broken, too, and I was only too happy not to get on the thing.
They brought in another aircraft about an hour later, and once all those passengers disembarked and the plane was cleaned and fuelled (with the right amount), we finally got on. That flight was unpleasantly bumpy, but in my time sitting around DFW airport, I’d met some nice people that I wound up sitting with, and one of them is a huge Civil War buff 🙂 So despite the turbulence I enjoyed her company, and Tina was waiting for me with baby Areia when I arrived in Austin.
We had a lovely Greek dinner (Tina’s short for Athena, and she’s half Greek) before driving to their beautiful new Spanish-style house. I met their two Great Danes and had the grand tour (OMG, if you could see the master walk-in closet, all you women out there would be pea-green with envy. I’ll try to take pictures and post them later, but it’s something else.). Today we’re going to go into the city and do a little shopping and sight-seeing, and tomorrow I’m off to the ranch with Rhonda.
No flights for me for another four days! I’m so okay with that 🙂