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Southlake Princess "All good things must come to an end." |
Friday, 2nd June 2006 |
Sky RanchWe moved to Southlake Texas a couple of years ago and one of the first things we did was join the Southlake Shooting Stars. This is a father, daughter group. They do camp-outs but because we had a great chief we never really camped out. We never slept on the ground, huddled in a damp tent or felt the sharp edge of a rock poke up though our sleeping bags. We slept on beds with mattresses in air conditioned cabins. We did get to build campfires and roast marshmallows with our daughters. We got to impress them with our camping skills and wood lore knowledge which at least in my case is pretty limited. I served in the Army for 11 years so you would think that I would know a lot about camping. I do know a lot about sleeping on the ground and would have been happy to be huddled in a damp tent with a sharp rock poking me in the back for most of those 11 years, but I don't really know much about camping. In the Army we started our fires with JP4 jet fuel or warmed our coffee over a bit of C4 explosive (which surprisingly burns and doesn't explode when you light it) We called in resupply when we got hungry and when it was over we jumped on a Huey and flew back to base to grab a shower, a drink or two at the NCO club and a fall asleep in a bunk that was no where near as nice as the bunks we sleep in as a Shooting Star. We certainly didn't have air-conditioning in the barracks. I don't know why I always fall back into a war story when I think of something that doesn't have much in common with being a "Grunt." My old platoon will get out kick of this story since it would show them how far their old platoon sergeant has fallen from being the "old man," to just being an old man. Who thinks sleeping in an Air Conditioned cabin with a bunch of senior executives is related to being in the "bush." I don't know why, I think it is a guy thing. It has to be the shared experience thing. Maybe it is the smell of smoke wafting through the trees, or the smell of guys who haven't showered for a couple of days. It is a guy thing, the wisdom of age shared with the enthusiasm of youth. In the Army it was showing some young kid how to walk point. In the Indian Princess tribe it is Dad teaching his Daughter how to roast a marshmallow just right. How to brown it without burning it. How to pop it on a square of chocolate quickly so it will melt to perfection. This is our last camp out. The weather is great and my daughter is really looking forward to it. Her mom is going to sneak her out of school early so we can drive the four hours to the campsite and not miss a minute. Cheryl is very comfortable with the people at the school so under reason for pulling Katie out early she puts down, "Ditching" We stop to top off our pogey bait at a store making sure we have plenty of marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers. We get a pizza at a little pizza shop that we stopped off last year, then head into Sky Ranch. We are in the first cabin which I think is new. It is far away from everything which is nice since we don't have to worry about boy's. Dad's are always worried about boys. We keep telling our daughter's that boys are nasty, vile little creatures that should be avoided at all cost, but for some reason they still seem to be drawn to them like moths to a flame. Maybe it is the boys that are drawn to our daughters but ether way I'm happy that we seem to be boy free this camp out. We are unfortunately, not kitten free. The last time we were at Sky Ranch we reduced the mouse population by one, this time I'm afraid we might move up the food chain and do in some kittens that the girls find huddled under a maintenance building. We tell them to leave them alone, so of course, they don't. The kitten's end up in the cabin and for some reason in Dad's sleeping bag so that the fleas will have someone tasty to munch on tonight. We get them back under the building in time for the Mommy cat can feed them but they reappear every day in the arms of one little girl or another. We get a very pleasant surprise as the girls are poking around with the kittens, Mike has bought each of us a chair with our Indian names on the back of them. I notice we have a lot of names with "Thunder" in them. I'm not sure if that is from all of the snoring or from the Chili that we eat on the first night out. The chairs are very nice. They have a built in foot rest so you can sit by the fire, put our feet up and eat the rejected S'mores that your daughter makes but hasn't gotten quite prefect. There is nothing like sitting next to a roaring fire, that doesn't smell like jet fuel, eating S'mores made by your loving daughter. I know it isn't going to last, so it only makes it sweeter when you know in 8 years you will be screaming at her, “You are not going out dressed like that!” Thinking what the hell happened to my cute little daughter that use to make me S'mores. We all go to bed with only one planned event for Saturday, the "Zip-Line." The rest of the day can be filled with anything we want. The Father's dream of naps while the daughters dream of kittens, swimming, water slides, and the Zip-Line. We get up and grab some coffee, not wool sock, 25 gallon boiled "Grunt" coffee. Real freshly ground gourmet coffee made in a $300 European stainless steel coffee machine. We head off to breakfast where Katie refuses to eat anything explaining that she has already had some cookies, marshmallows, and Nutela, so isn't very hungry. We walk back to change into swimsuits and everyone remembers to wear shoes since you can not go on the zip-line unless you are wearing shoes. Katie will not go near the lake. I don't mean “in” the lake, she really will not even walk near it. I suppose it is because last time I almost drowned her under a kayak, or because she thinks the fish will eat her toes, either way she has decided that only chlorinated water will do this trip. We go over to the pool and swim. We then head over to the water slide. I don't ride the slide this year since the photos of me on it last year convinced me that fat hairy backed men should keep their shirts on. I have to hurry her up on her last ride down the slide since we need to be over at the"Zip-Line" by 11:00 am. We get over there but half our group is at the front of the line and then a group of smelly boys then the rest of our girls. That means we are broken into two groups. The girls fix this pretty quickly by telling the boys to move to the end of the line. They don't want to, but guys figure out pretty early that you have to do whatecer girls say. If you don't, only bad things will happen. We get everyone together but then there is another problem, for some reason they now not only require shoes but shirts are also required this year. The girls are in swim suits with shorts, socks and shoes but we are told they need real shirts. Shirts with sleeves are now required. We ask if they can wear our shirts. I'm not too happy about this idea since as I said, fat hairy backed men should keep their shirts on. The other dad's strip down and their daughters happily put on their shirts but Katie looks around anxiously and tells me, "Lets wait." I am not sure if it is because I have been standing in the Sun all morning in this shirt or if she agrees about hairy backed men and shirts. She gets to the front of the line and when push comes to shove she decides that she wants to ride the "Zip-Line" enough to take my shirt.  We get our shirts back thankful for everyone involved. We spend the rest of the day doing whatever we want to do. The girls play with the kittens, swim, ride on the water slides, and most of the Fathers take a nap. We sit around the fire, drink coffee, make some more S'mores and tell lies to each other. The girls head off to bed but we can hear them squealing and laughing so most of the dad's decide to drink one more "coffee" and wait for them to fall asleep. I give up faster than most and head into bed. It is about 2 in the morning when I hear Thunder not the kind from chili but real thunder. I roll over and start to go back to sleep. I see the first flash of Lighting followed pretty quickly by more Thunder. I think, "Boy I'm glad we are in a nice dry cabin and not in some tent." I roll back over and think, "Hey wait a minute we are leaving tomorrow and it is going to be pretty hard to pack up a wet chair, towels, bathing suits and all of the other stuff laying around outside of the cabin. I get up and start grabbing stuff. I don't really care who it belongs to I just pile it up on top of an unused bed and figure we can work it out tomorrow. I'm coming back in when I see Jonathan come shooting out of the cabin. He is dress for a run and he is running. I think, "Man that is one dedicated guy. He got up this early and is going for a run in this weather." He doesn't see me because he is moving so fast. I look out the window but he is already on his first quarter mile and is making really good time so is quickly out of sight. I think, “I should start running again, but then look down at my 40 inch waist up from 28 inches when I was running and sink down into my bed, saying, "That ship has sailed." The rain comes about ten minutes later and it pours down. I think about Jonathan as I slip off back to sleep. The rain has just about stopped when I wake up around seven in the morning. Jonathan is surprisingly dry for a guy who has been out running in the rain. I ask him about it and the tells me, “I wasn't out running, I brought the Jeep and didn't have the roof up or door's on it.” He was running to try and keep the jeep from filling up like rain barrel. He also told me that when he got to the jeep their was something curled up in his front seat. It turned out to be rabbit. I'm glad it was him and not me since I was already down to my last pair of shorts and something jumping out at me from the front seat of my car would have caused me to have to recycle a pair. We packed up and said our goodbye but remembered that even though this was our last campout together we were going to get together for a Three Dog Night concert. 
Three Dog Night The concert is at Billy Bob's. I have lived in Texas on and off for about eight years but I have never gone to Billy Bob's. If Katie was a boy I was going to name him, William Robert Hartman because she was born in Texas and I like the names. I also think it is kind of cool to be able to sign your name to the contract William R. Hartman but call yourself Billy Bob while your negotiating it. I once had the CIO of Texas Instruments slip into a deep Fort Worth accent and say, "I'm just a poor dumb country boy from Texas so you are going to have to slow down and explain this to me one more time." Of course a poor dumb country boy doesn't become the CIO of Texas Instruments but it was a pretty disarming gag. I am dressed all wrong for Billy Bob's I have a pair of jeans on which is OK, a dress shirt which is no iron but has a sharp crease in it so it looks a little too “metro” for Billy Bob's. I could have gotten away with the shirt if I was wearing a Cowboy hat, a rodeo buckle and boots. I wasn't, I was wearing sneakers, no hat, and a plain brown belt. I was told the first time I move to Texas by somebody, it might have even been the CIO of Texas Instruments, the rules: I am dressed all wrong for Billy Bob's I have a pair of jeans on which is OK, a dress shirt which is no iron and has a sharp crease in it so it looks a little too “metro” for Billy Bob's. I could have gotten away with the shirt if I was wearing a Cowboy hat, a rodeo buckle and boots. I wasn't, I was wearing sneakers, no hat, and a plain brown belt. I was told the first time I move to Texas by somebody, it might have even been the CIO of Texas Instruments, the rules: They are: 1. You can wear the buckle as soon as you win one. 2. You can wear the boots as soon as you can do the Texas two step. (Only problem is I have had five different women teach me the Texas two-step and it was different all five times.) 3. You can never wear the hat. You can wear a baseball cap and since I was in the military I can wear my old jungle hat with my rank but I never get to wear a cowboy hat. Now Katie can get away with everything since she was born in Texas but I still think it would look a lot cooler on her if she was called Billy Bob. We catch a ride with Mark his wife, since I would be lost and we would never make it to the concert if I drove. Cheryl also hates the way I drive, hates to drive at night, and hates the way I complain about the way she drives. Getting a ride with the Hasler's seemed like a really good plan to me. We are all going to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner since the concert doesn't start until 10:30. I'm yawing at 9:00 pm. Ten Thirty is my bedtime and I don't know if I am going to make it though the night. We pull into the Café Aspen which is a high-end Texas restaurant. If you don't know what that means, I think my dinner with explain it. I order the Chicken Fried Lobster. I know it seems like I'm making this up just to be funny, which I have been known to do, but I have one rule about lying, never get caught. I see Chicken Fried Lobster on the menu and I think, "I don't care what it taste like, I have to order this." I have lived in Georgia, Kentucky and Texas so I have had Chicken fried just about everything, steak, alligator, veal, oysters, hamburger, in Scotland once I had a Chicken Fried Snickers, I have even had Chicken Fried Chicken but I have never had Chicken Fried Lobster before. I have to admit it was pretty tasty, in fact of all the chicken fried stuff I have had, chicken fried lobster is the best of the bunch. I had a Miller lite with it and would recommend you try it if you are ever in Fort Worth. We left the café around 10:15 it was a quick trip to Bill Bob's. We got there just in time, in fact we almost didn't have enough time to get a drink. I was surprise how slow the service was, I was thinking, "This would be a great place to open a bar." It wasn't really busy at the bar, they were just very slow. I ordered a Lone Star beer since if you are going to drink in a Texas Honky Tonk you might as well drink a Texas beer, plus I don't really have a favorite beer. I do have a few beers that I hate, mostly micro brew made with raspberry, chocolate or lemon grass. I think beer should be cold, amber colored, with just enough hops in it too bite, but most importantly it should be beer flavored. We got to our table just as Three Dog Night was doing their opening. I noticed that the members of our group that first listened to them as teenagers, like me, thought they looked a bit older then we remember them. The people that first heard them when they were in 5th grade thought that were really really old. I guess if they were a bit older than you, they are still just a bit older than you. If they were cool young guys when you first saw them they are no longer cool young guys. They opened with "Black and White" and it sounded really good. They then did a couple of jokes about playing in Texas, Billy Bob's and Viagra. It was really good to see them have a sense of humor around not being the cool young studs they were 25 years ago. I was amazed at the number of hits they had. They didn't do all of their songs but they did a really nice mix and played the ones that you would be disappointed it they didn't play them. They played an old Beatles song making fun of their memory saying they are getting so old that they sometime forget which songs were their's. They then moved on to "One", "Shambala", and "An Old Fashioned Love Song.” They played "Mama Told Me Not to Come" stopped in the middle and said that some rappers told them this was the first rap song. They changed into rapper outfits, chains, wool caps and goofed around by playing a Rap version of the song. They then moved on to; "Liar", "Never Been to Spain", "Easy to be Hard", "Celebrate", "Try a little Tenderness", "One Man Band", and finished with "Eli's Coming." The crowd went wild, well as wild as 40 year old Mom's and Dad's can get at midnight, so the band came back on stage and did "Joy to the World" as their encore. I didn't list the play list to impress anyone and might have gotten them out of order or missed one, I listed it to show how many hits songs they had. They have a really good web site which has a clip player so if you think you don't know any of these song go to it and check it out. If you know where you were when Kennedy got shot you will remember these songs. http://threedognight.com/ It was late, half of the group decided to stick around, get a drink or two and do a little Texas two step. Of course I'm only guessing since I was not in that half. I was tired and the look on my pretty wife showed me that I was not alone. Our puppy dog eyes convinced the Hasler's to have pity on us and drive us home. It was a ton of fun. Not just the concert; but the camp-outs, the dinner party's, the super bowl party's. It almost makes you want to have another kid so you can do it all over again. But then again I really don't want to be 64 telling my teenage daughter, “You are not going to leave this house dressed like that!” All I can say was it was real, it was fun, it was really fun. Thanks to the tribe for letting us hang out with them. Rolling Thunder |
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