Friday 16^th February we arrived in Lampasas at the Bean Creek Ranch belonging to the Jones’ who we had met back in Alpine. We had absolutely no idea what to expect. Firstly we had no idea what the ranch would be like. We had driven past some huge gateways and entrances to ranches off the road. Each one more elaborate, ornate and enormous than the last. I guess if your house is tucked back miles from the road on your huge plot of land, no one can see how big it is. So your gate has to do the talking!!

But most importantly because we had really didn’t know our hosts very well. We had met the Jones’ for a total of probably 3 hours one snowy night in a campsite and they’d kindly taken us out to dinner to escape our broken and very cold van for a couple of hours. As far as we knew they could be complete nutters.. very generous and hospitable nutters evidently. So we had given the kids strict instructions that if we were to suddenly announce that we had to leave immediately due to unforeseen circumstances they should keep quiet and just go along with it – allowing us to make a quick escape!

We needn’t have worried. We had found all Texans to be deeply religious, respectful, generous and welcoming and the Jones’ are all of this and more. Oh once we’d cleared up that it was ‘Craig’ and not ‘Greg’, which is how it sounded in their accents!! They are some of the nicest people we have met on this trip so far and when we finally parted ways 6 days later we were genuinely sad to say goodbye!

The ranch was built in the 1940’s by Craig’s paternal grandfather and the 1000 acres are now split between Craig’s Dad, his Aunt Donna and his Uncle (who we didn’t meet). Craig and Valerie run and manage the land for native wildlife focusing primarily on whitetail deer. They have paid guests who come to the ranch to hunt but we were lucky enough to be their guests.

  

There were 2 hunters there over the weekend, Scott and Phillip, father and son from Lake Charles, Louisiana and Craig and Valerie’s good friend Rob from Rhode Island. Dale (their 13 year old son) had brought his friend Brandon along too. Craig’s auntie Donna and her husband Lonnie spent a lot of time with us as well as inviting us into their lovely home also on the ranch.   So we were quite the group!

Craig and Rob took the hunters out at sunrise and sunset each day ad the rest of the time we all hung out around the ranch. We had a fantastic weekend. It was so lovely to be out of the van and in a house. Still with most of the fabulous features of when the house was originally built, I loved it.

The land there is beautiful including an area called Indian Bluff, a huge cliff of shale stone randomly located in the middle of the prairie where they have found countless arrowheads and Will found a raccoon skull, which pleased him greatly. Valerie kindly boiled it and it now has pride of place (along with the deer antler he was given) at the end of his bed – lovely!!

  

The boys shared a room with Dale and Brandon, which they loved. It was a complete pit by the end of our time there with piles of dirty socks everywhere. The farting and boy banter caused much hilarity. The bigger boys were very sweet with our two and spent hours teaching them American football. They also played a constant Nerf Gun war! Most exciting was the Xbox. It’s been 8 months since they played on one so they were delighted. In fact one day Charlie spent almost all day on it while the bigger boys went hunting.

Craig was so very patient and kind to our boys. This was absolutely boy (and John) heaven.  So much space!  So many toys!! They spent hours driving around the ranch looking for wildlife. He also let them shoot a range of guns and clay pigeon shooting.  I am as bad a shot as I thought I would be!!  Considering the strength of William’s glasses (that he rarely wears) he is a fairly incredible shot!! So much so that he was allowed to go out with the hunters on the last night and very proudly made his first kill.

Scott gave Valerie and I a Cajun-cooking lesson one afternoon and introduced us to the delicious boudin sausage, which is a Louisiana specialty. He and Phillip were lovely and we loved their stories of wresting alligators, all told in their distinctive Louisiana accents! So very much looking forward to visiting that part of the US in a couple of weeks.

John was completely in his element and found a firm friend in Lonnie who had an extensive collection of Shelby Mustang’s many years ago!!  He now has just one prized GT500 which is in need of some TLC (which John would have been very happy to give)…

Donna, Valerie and I visited the very conveniently located vineyard just outside of their gates. In fact there are 2 rival vineyards next door to each other owned by twin brothers Bill and Gill. Love it! Bill’s lovely wife Suelynne gave us a personal tasting of their delicious Legato wine!

The weather was lovely so we were outside for the whole time. We had BBQ’s and fires every night and enjoyed spending time with all these interesting and lovely people. It felt so lucky that we had met them and we had got to have this unique experience.

As if 3 nights at their ranch in boy heaven wasn’t enough, they then invited us to stay at their home in Mansfield so we could visit Dallas and Fort Worth. We hadn’t intended to come up this far north despite John being keen to visit the JFK assassination site but we were having so much fun with them we weren’t ready to say goodbye just yet!!

So on Monday 19^th we drove up to their lovely home in Mansfield just between Dallas and Fort Worth. Total shock to the system having spent a few weeks in Hill Country, to be back in such a major city. Monday was a holiday from school for Dale and Craig had pulled a sickie to extend our stay in Lampasas but was due back to work on Tuesday. But incredibly they were both hit by a mysterious illness on Tuesday that meant they had to stay at home!

Well actually we didn’t’ stay home but all drove into Dallas to visit the JFK Museum! We were really surprised that it is NOT run by the National Parks Service (as they seem to run all sites of importance in the US!) but instead is a private museum, housed in the old book depositary. It was however a very interesting museum. Lots of great detail of JFK’s short presidency and the background into the investigation of his assassination. We stood on the grassy knoll and on the x still marked in the middle of the road where he was hit (bit dangerous dodging traffic to do that!). We stood at the window where Lee Harvey Oswald is alleged to have shot him.

        

Although interesting it didn’t exactly answer any of the key conspiracy theories or questions about the investigation etc. So we indulged in lots of amateur detective work of our own and theorising as to what happened. Charlie particularly was very vocal on the subject and couldn’t understand why Oswald wouldn’t have taken the shot when the car was heading straight towards him instead of waiting till it had turned a corner and he had to aim at the back of his head!! Not sure they are going to reopen the investigation in light of his theories but interesting nonetheless!

We spent the rest of the sunny afternoon in Klyde Warren Park a new 5-acre park located in the heart of the city.  A great place to hang out with a children’s park, reading room, huge lawn, restaurant, fountain plaza (where William managed to get completely drenched), games area and ‘urban dog park’ (basically a soft play for dogs!!).

        

We had supper at the park then drove back to Mansfield for desert at another restaurant, meeting Bob and Terri and their daughter Alison (the other lovely family we had met in Alpine). Our last night with the Jones’ ended with Charlie and Valerie dancing on the table to ‘Shake it off’ and declaring undying love to each other!!

  

On Wednesday Craig went back to work and Dale to school which broke up our happy gang! Valerie very sweetly took us to Fort Worth to see the Stockyards (we were sure she must be sick of us by then and desperate to get back to her normal life!!).

The history here is that for the drovers heading the cattle up the Chisholm Trail to the railheads, Fort Worth was the last major stop for rest and supplies. Over  four million head of cattle were trailed through Fort Worth, which was soon known as “Cowtown.” When the railroad arrived in 1876, Fort Worth became a major shipping point for livestock. It soon became apparent that instead of shipping to other markets to process the cattle, it would be much better to keep the business in Fort Worth by having local packing plants. The Fort Worth Stock Yards Company’s Livestock Exchange Building became known as 
“The Wall Street of the West”. During World War I in 1917, the Fort Worth Stockyards was the largest horse and mule market in the world. Military officers from Allied countries came to purchase the animals to support their war efforts. It is no longer a working stockyard and the twice daily ‘cattle drive’ down the main street in town is for the enjoyment of the tourists!

        

The town has a lovely old Western feel to it and I could have spent a small fortune on a pair or two of the incredible cowboy boots on sale here!!

Finally the time came to say goodbye. With a very heavy heart we left Valerie and Lucy (the gerbil), having already said our farewells to Craig and Dale that morning. We have made some great friends in them and plans are already underway for them to visit us in the UK… if Valerie doesn’t manage to persuade Craig to drive down and meet us in Florida first!!

Turns out Valerie and Charlie had made such a connection she went out and got this done within an hour of us leaving….

So we got on the road headed south to Spring, just outside of Houston to have the glow plugs mended on the van and to visit the infamous skate park that the boys had found in the same town – what a lucky coincidence!!