Recently, our family made a weekend trip to a funeral in the Dallas area, and spent the night on the way down at "The Ranch." If you've known Erin's family for any number of years, you've probably heard them make mention of their Ranch near Stephenville. Long story short, it's the house and land that Erin's Bubba (that's Grandpa to the uninitiated) owned, and when Erin was growing up their family would go down there a couple of times a year, usually for a week at a time. Crossing the cattle guard off of the highway, it doesn't take long to realize that you've entered into a different world, a throwback to (without trying to sound too cliche) a simpler time.
The family has always enjoyed time there because of that simplicity. As kids, that meant fishing, exploring, and collecting all sorts of things - rocks, bones, leaves, whatever. As they got older, they came to discover that there may or may not be an age requirement to drive the old Bronco out on the dirty trails. And those naps that you fight off so violently when you're little? The ranch is a fantastic place to let them catch up to you now.
I realize after trying to give you the Cliff's Notes version of what the ranch is and what it means that we would do well the next time we go to take a few pictures of the house and its immediate surroundings. You'd quickly get a sense of what I'm talking about just from seeing the place. While I don't have anything along those lines, we did take some during the few hours of daylight we had to work with. Here are our adventures!
Little Man was pretty stoked to get to use binoculars to aid in his exploring:
We made our way to the "back tank," where traditionally plenty of fishing and turtle hunting has taken place. The drought has certainly made its presence known, but the dry ground does lend a different perspective than we're used to...
The ranch is always a fantastic place to find all sorts of animal remains... which is perfect for a six-year-old boy!
And this is Papa no doubt making up some story about how the poor animal fought valiantly and died a hero, and here lie his bones to this very day...
A couple of shots that caught my eye:
And finally, when you're cruising the ranch looking for chicks, this is probably the way you should do it...
Thanks for taking the time to read; you can comment on individual pictures at www.DamonWestPhoto.com on the "Just For Fun" page. And for those who are concerned, the Bronco wasn't actually running when that last one was taken. :)
Damon
