Christmas Evening Dance & Feed

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OUCH!

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Mojave Rattler / Musician???

Found this little critter on the patio of the Legion last night when I was leaving. My bar tender walked right past it. Fortunately it had cooled off a good bit and the snake was real sluggish so that probably saved her from being bitten. It is a Mojave rattler (The deadliest snake in the US) I thought the threat of rattlesnakes was over after all the cold weather, but it was an unusually warm day here yesterday so I guess it ventured out to find a meal.

Got a very good deal on this guitar from one of the legion customers. It had a broken string, but Pat O'Bryan turned me on to a new set so its good to go. I'll need to get a tuner though. This will make about the 3rd guitar I've owned over the years and about the 5th time I've tried to learn how to play one. I HOPE I have better luck this time!

What th'a ....

Can't say I've ever seen a Christmas tree here in the Legion before, but I guess all things change. Having a woman bar tender seems to have changed that. Someone had too much time on their hands and the deer got a red nose out of it.

The Thanksgiving dinner here turned out good and was actually real enjoyable since the place wasn't full of people. Perhaps a total of 15 to 20 people showed up. I guess a lot of that was because since originally I was not getting any response from people thinking we should have such a dinner this place almost closed. There was a feed at the Cow Head Ranch about two miles from here and George Goss had a shindig in Lajitas so that cut way down on people that would come. There was also another feed up this way that got its share of people. I'd at first decided to shut down for Thanksgiving because of lack of people wanting it, but shortly before it that all changed. Donations of food started coming in and a number of people wanted to have the feed so we had it.

We had been needing a way to play music around here and one of the customers donated a 1 Terabyte USB drive too store it all on. I decided to use my old lap top to run it off of, but the keyboard was bad because it had a huge gulp of R&R and Coke one time. The USB keyboard I was using on it was worn out to, but MsB (Ms Belinda) of the Terlingua Dreams Blog was kind enough to send me a high visibility USB keyboard so between the three. (Dennis' drive, my computer and MsB's keyboard) we're fixed up on sound at the Legion.

Got a really bad star ding in my windshield driving down 118 a few days ago. A rock bounced out of a trailer going by me and sounded like a small explosion when it hit the windshield. I've since patched that with one of the windshield ding repair kits and hope it holds up as good as the one I used on the falcon about 30 or so years ago. Its still working well.

Progress on the chopper project is real slow mainly because of me being basically lazy and having plenty to do besides that also. That and a community project that it was supposed to be has manly fallen on me to do by myself. Maybe one of these days? The cold weather sure hasn't helped any either.

The above picture was a beautiful sun rise back on the 18th before all the damn cold weather! Have I ever said I hate COLD???? Can't say I'm too crazy about Christmas anymore either, but now there seems to be a lot of interest in having a feed then to so I guess that will be in the works.

JEEP'ers Creepers

Haven't posted in a good while so figured I'd try to update this.

A while back one of my friends told me of a Jeep for sale cheep. $300. Its just a year newer than mine and supposedly had a real good engine, transmission and transfer case. I was hoping to swap some parts and come up with one nice jeep between the two. I bought it sight unseen which was not a good idea even though I was buying it from another acquaintance.

When it arrived here on the trailer it all of a sudden transformed from a good running Jeep to a total RAT's NEST and rust bucket.

I was aware, that it was missing a door, but figured one from my Jeep or another one around the area would fit on it. Not so. Note all the rust on the bumper. The body is like that to. The hinges are rusted so bad that they would not support a door in the open position.

The deal was that the tires and mags won't go with it and he is supposed to come back and get them later.

What you see here is a massive amount of RAT turds and parts of a rat's nest and this is in the rear of the Jeep.

This is under the hood and it is totally covered with a rat's nest and to boot there is a rat the size of a small dog hiding under it. I haven't figured out a way to kill the rat yet, but when I do and remove the nest I'm sure I'll find that all of the wiring has been chewed up as is evident by pieces of plastic conduit and wire insulation scattered through out the nest.

The only good part about this is that there are probably a few small parts I can use off of it to replace bad ones on mine. (If there are any such usable parts?) The suspension parts are supposedly pretty new, but a lift kit has been added which would make my Jeep sit about another 4 or 5 inches higher than is does now. I'd about have to add running boards to it to be able to get in and out of it. It would probably cure the death wobble on mine though, but I don't have the tools or knowledge to swap the parts over so that's out.

UPDATE

Score: RAT 1 David 0.

I got a rat trap and was going to set it under the hood of the new rust bucket. When I opened the hood the rat was on top of the nest and as I reached for the prop rod to hold the hood up the damn rat charged at me. Of course it startled me and I withdrew and when I did that the hood fell on my hand.

I didn't have any bandages around here so I took a clean sock and fashioned the glove out of it to act as a bandage. Fortunately I've had a tetanus shot within the last couple of years so I should be covered even though the edge of the hood that got me was rusty as hell. This was all yesterday evening and even though the trap is set under the hood now there is no sign of the rat either in the trap or out of it. Would be my luck that its headed for another vehicle. Grrrr.....

At the Fish Fry

Some pictures from yesterday's Fish Fry. The turnout was good at 41 total and we were very happy to have some of the cream of the crop musicians to entertain us even though there was one of the JAMs gong on at the High Sierra. There was more than enough fish to go around and other food galore. Boy did I get STUFFED!

Also had a skeet shoot after the feed which went over well while the rest of us were being entertained by the musicians.

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Paris Texas (The Movie) Staring the Terlingua American Legion.

Guess I had to get sick to take time to update the blog. I've been laying around here sleeping a lot and watching moves because I feel too lousy to do much else.  I decided to try and get something done and this will probably be it for the day. I did manage to get to the legion early this morning and take care of business.

---{Paris Texas the Movie}---

Once up on a time back in 1984 a movie named Paris, Texas was filmed partially at the Terlingua American Legion. The movie can be watched online on Youtube and other sources if you're interested in watching it. Once I started watching it I remembered I'd seen it many years ago, but had no clue where parts of it were filmed.

The movie starts out with a nut case walking through the Devil's Playground and then he finally ends up at the American legion after passing out and being carried there.

A local said the below part of the movie was at the Terlingua Store, but I can't confirm that. Anyway that's where the character passed out and was then transported to the American Legion (Which was supposedly a clinic)

Next photos are screen shots of the Legion. Er Clinic???

Never really was a clinic because the American Legion mail box was there even back then. The barn shown out in front of the mail boxes is the one that disappeared in the big storm a few years back. It must have been being built then because it was eventually totally enclosed with a gabled roof on it.

The picture above was actually the guy walking behind the legion before he was supposedly transported there after passing out.

Below are scenes on the Legion patio.

Looks like the old Doc likes his Tequila.

Also stared Natasha Kinsky

Note ice and gas prices in Alpine back in 1984. Gas would have probably been below a buck a gallon in other parts of Texas. Those were the good old days.



Pretty entertaining movie.

As for the brisket cook off I think it was pretty well determined that I won, but Luke also smoked a bunch of pork spare ribs that were to die for. The cobra (Shelby Group) was a success as usual and a lot of fun. Unfortunately they had already eaten back in Alpine so none of them did more than snack. Not to worry though because there were enough locals to more or less eat everything that wasn't bolted down.