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The morning of our drive to Texas we were up before the sun and fell out of bed into our car (that was still there). We managed to beat the morning traffic and waited until we were out of town before our breakfast stop at burger king. We still had another 700kms to go but we were averaging 140km/hr (which didn't seem to bother highway patrol), so we burned through it pretty quick. We arrived at Beaumont Ranch early in the afternoon because we wanted to spend as much time as possible relaxing in the countryside. The accommodation was a brand new mock up of an old western town. Complete with a saloon and sheriff's office. Our room in the town wasn't ready yet so we helped ourselves to the paddleboats on the lake. Then found out why no one else was using them.
As far as I could tell, we were the only people staying there on a holiday, the rest were all there for weddings that weekend. The afternoon was spent relaxing and unpacking in our country style room.
The ranch sits on about 800acres so you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. The only restaurant around is their own. So around 5:30pm we wandered out of our little town, around the lake and to dinner where it was their famous catfish Friday. It's a huge thing apparently to eat big chunks of deep fried catfish. I tried it but it wasn't really for me, so I stuck to the rest of the buffet that had ribs and southern fried chicken. During dinner the local band played lived music featuring all our favourite classic country hits - none of which I knew. After dinner we did the rounds of the restaurant (which actually is just like a giant barn) where we played pool and shuffle board. Then we went outside and helped ourselves to a game of horseshoe.
The ranch offers a heap of activities but most of it was booked out when we wanted to go so we had almost a full day of nothing to do, so we decided to go exploring in the explorer. We opened the cattle gate and just drove around the ranch, stopping to get some photos of the view. It was good fun just going for a drive with no plan or road.
That afternoon we were booked in to go skeet shooting with a 12-gauge shotgun. Because we were the last group of the day, it was just us 4 doing the shooting which meant it was a lot more fun and we got more shots out of it.
Dinner again was the buffet in the restaurant but half was closed off because there was a wedding reception that night. It was interesting seeing how Texans celebrate weddings. We were sitting in the bar when the wedding party walked in. Naturally they were all in their best cowboy boots and were welcomed by a big Yeehaa! But when the bride and groom had their first dance, everyone just carried talking and almost went unnoticed. Something else we noticed - there is this hip hop song called Wobble by V.I.C. Apparently it's been around a few years and when it came on, everyone young and old formed lines and did all the dance moves to this song. It was pretty interesting seeing country people dance to Hip Hop style music.
As the night went on, people became drunk and struck up conversations with us. I think Anita was even in one of the wedding photo's!
Because we weren't allowed to bring alcohol onto the ranch we ordered a heap of beers to take with us back to our room from the bar. So the barman gave us a carry cooler bag to take with us. Heading back we noticed a giant bon fire that had been built, but not set alight. It had seats set up and everything! We discussed all the reasons why it would be ok for us to light this bonfire and after much drinking we decided it was a great idea to throw a match on it.
After no time at all it was a raging inferno and we had all these other people staying there, come over and sit with us. It was one of the best nights so far on the trip. Texans are so friendly and I'll never get sick of 21yo's saying 'yes Sir, no Sir' to me. Also Australians are almost exotic to the people of Texas and you are like a minor celebrity. We continued to drink and burn stuff and chat with the locals until the wee hours of the morning.
The only issue with drinking all night was that we had a booking for a quad bike tour at 9am the next day. I was in no shape to operate a vehicle and our tour guide was hardcore into extreme quad biking and wanted to push us hard. Most of the time I was just holding on for dear life but as the adrenalin kicked in it really became fun, to the point where he was taking us over jumps and we were all getting air on our quads. The tour lasted about 90mins and again it was just us 4 so it was a good personal experience.
After the quad bikes, the adrenalin wore down and my raging hangover kicked in again. We had a 2hr break so I found some shade by the lake and slept. After my nap I was feeling a lot better and headed over to the barn where we had another activity booked called the Cowboy Experience. We saddled up on a horse each and followed our guides on a horse trail until we found the cattle. Then we spent the next hour or so mustering them and basically learning how to ride and steer cattle at the same time. I had a heap of fun and didn't realise I would enjoy it so much. After we finished hassling the cattle we took our horses back up to the barn and had a lesson in lasso with a mock up cow.
Literally as soon as the activity finished we hit the road one last time. I know in the last entry I said we had one more drive, but I was telling lies. We had one more 4hour drive to Houston where we returned the Explorer and settled for the night in the airport hotel. The next morning we flew to Miami.
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