RANCH TRIP

Spring Break is this theoretical break that happens every spring. Unless you are in school, Spring Break is no longer real. So our Spring Vacation, that happened to fall during Spring Break, was out to a ranch in West Texas. The town is called Barkley, Texas. Never heard of? How about Camp Wood, TX... Uvalde, TX? It's a small deer lease/ranch town about 2 hours west of San Antonio. There were 16 of us total in this group of all ages. Figure 2 Ranch has been a family ranch to close friend's of ours. There is about 900 acres and it sits on the Neuces River (due to the drought, its a bit low). 

On our way out of Uvalde, an hour or so from the Ranch, we stopped at the only Wal-Mart for 100's of miles I am sure. Once we got into Camp Wood, there was a Git-N-Go, a burger shack & deer feed. As a born and raised New Englander, Texas leaves me feeling really hot, humid & flat! Living in the Houston region below sea-level, the only elevation will be manmade overpasses. 

So as soon as we got past Camp Wood, out of no where mountains pop up. They're no Grand Teton, nor are they the Appalachians, but they were magnificent. I was really excited to see any change of elevation. Then all of a sudden you see these random ranches popping up. 

A few look small, lived in year-round, then there are others. There was this rather extensive ranch called Los Palmas. I wish I had taken a picture of it. It had large white cement walls, with broken glass on the top. My assumption, since we were only an hour or so from the Mexican border, was it was some vacation home of Mexican royalty. I convinced myself it must be the Mexican version of Downton Abbey. 

The next ranch we came upon, was my favorite. Exotic wild game! The first animals I saw were the giraffes! I pulled over and snapped pictures of someone's pet giraffe. Only in West Texas would I ever even see Giraffes not in the zoo. 

The week was relaxing. I went for a run one morning and came upon a pack of wild hogs by the river. Needless to say, I turned around and my pace quickened. So many fun memories. My favorite was the fact I got to completely unplug. No phone, unless you go to one specific spot on the ranch, away from the house, almost up their mountain. The family and friends we spent the weekend with are amazing. 

In conclusion, I would totally move out there and live my entire life there. I would just need them to improve the store situations, wifi accessibility, civilization errr.. ok, vacations at the ranch are best!