A couple of weeks ago we had a most unique dining experience. We went to the Dodging Duck which is probably our favorite place to eat in Boerne - it's kind of a pub with a big front porch and it's across the street from the river that's full of ducks (hence the name). Anyhow, as we were waiting for our food two ladies walked up to the porch leading horses and proceeded to hitch the horses and some feed bags to the porch posts. We met the horses, one's name was Charlie I remember, and the ladies encouraged us to take pictures and such. It was pretty neat, and seemingly uniquely "Texas" to dine with horses.

It got more unique a few minutes later though. You may be guessing what happened, but the waitress brought out my food, Paul says he saw the horse's eyes get really big, and, well, all of a sudden there was Charlie with his great big head between me and my plate, his nostrils quivering. I, trying desperately not to look like a Californian, tried to nonchalantly push my plate out of his reach, but Charlie just kept straining toward the plate with his bashful eyes looking at me as if to say, "please?" He never did eat any food (do horses eat cow anyway?), and his owner came over and flicked him on the nose and said "no" in a firm voice (and instructed me to do the same!) and got him to back off. Charlie went back to his feedbag and Paul and I started to laugh so hard at the absurdity of it all. It was a very memorable evening. Oh, and this is going to sound like the punch line to a really dumb joke probably, but in all seriousness - guess where Paul had said he wanted to go for dinner before we chose The Dodging Duck? Are you ready? This is no joke. THE HUNGRY HORSE! Seriously. I'm really not joking.

I think we moved to Hazzard County.

We went to a parade downtown on Saturday. It was two hours long and mostly consisted of hundreds of Shriner's club men (A cult? They have a prophet and a priest? So weird.) and tons of beauty pageant queens, princesses, and little misses. Above is a girl doing gymnastics on the bed of a moving pick-up truck.

Oh, and here come Charlie and his friend!

We then went from the parade to the county fair. There wasn't anything there to see except some goats. It really was an unimpressive fair. I was hoping for the Hall of Flowers but we're just not in Sonoma County any more. =) There was even only one cow on the grounds and she was just there for a milking demonstration. I'm sure there must be better fairs in Texas, but this one was just lame.

The highlight of the fair was this cute little girl trying to get her floppy-eared goat to stand in the correct position.


They did have horses at the fair, but they seemed destined for the glue factory. Most of them came right up to the gate as we approached them, seemingly desperate for attention. Except apparently one horse couldn't be bothered. (I don't know why but that picture just makes me laugh, it looks so snoody.) They were all very old, very tired looking creatures, but the one whose tongue just hung out of the side of its mouth was the worst. It was both funny and sort of gross and sad.


Our ticket to the fair did include admission to the rodeo later that night which was much, much better than the fair itself. Coming from California we could hardly believe this, but they actually prayed (in the name of Jesus) before the events started! I'm wondering when that kind of stuff will fail to shock me. Anyway, just as the rodeo was starting it began to pour and then as the sun set we saw lots of lightning. The rain continued to come down forcefully for at least half an hour and it made the rodeo so fun and exciting! I tried to take a picture of how huge the puddles were but our camera doesn't capture things well at night. The first time I took a picture the only thing I accidentally left the flash on so the only thing I got was the cowboy hat of the man sitting in front of us, but I thought that was appropriate.

Parking lots at fair grounds typically aren't paved and this one was no exception. And due to the rain this parking lot was a huge vat of muddiness. With each step I took my shoe would get sucked into the mud and be completely submerged and then only my foot would resurface and I'd have to dig around with my toes for the missing flip flop. After a few slow steps (slow both because of the mud and because we were laughing so hard), Paul took a cue from a young cowboy and hitched me onto his back for a ride to the car. Yep, our little Honda Civic with the Apple sticker on the back, looking as out of place amongst the F-350's crowded around it as we probably did amongst the cowboy boot-clad Texans.