Highlights from Texas

So I finally got an replacement SD card reader, and thus am now able to post some photos.

Here are some highlights from the past couple weeks:

1. Jerry Hodge’s High Card Ranch: near Clarendon, TX
High Card ranch was pretty amazing. It’s a family owned working longhorn ranch, with about 200 head on 12,000 acres in the Texas panhandle. The country is stunningly beautiful; red dirt dotted with green scrub, immense blue sky and dark rolling thunderheads in the distance. The entrance to the ranch is on a sort of hill from which you can literally see for miles, the hills in the distance a deep purplish blue. At first it looked for all the world like looking out onto the ocean from the Santa Monica hills, which definitely made me miss home. I mentioned the illusion to one of the ranch hands, who replied that he’d never seen the ocean; strangely poignant, I felt.

Jerry and his family couldn’t have been more polite and hospitable, cooking not one but two full meals for our entire cast and crew. We BBQd for lunch and had steak for dinner, possibly two of the best meals of the trip. Many of us were amazed at the relative ease with which the cast had very political and polarized discussions with the ranch folk; although several times they were in total disagreement, we all shook hands and sat down to eat afterwards. The true meaning of coexistence, I think.

After lunch we went for a long horseback ride, which I was thrilled about (I’ve been riding English for a long time). Lama and Bash are both great riders too, so we were able to have a great time. There’s something truly satisfying to your soul to be able to ride cross country as hard and as far as you can; no arenas, no fences, no stopping. Sara got to ride around on one of the longhorn steers, which are some of the strangest animals to see in person– they look like Seussical cartoons with their impossibly long horns!

Dinner was great, and afterwards Ed treated us all to some entertainment via his guitar and one of the other guys’ tuba. Ed is a pretty amazing character, we all felt fortunate to be accepted into their home and family for the day. We all left full, tired, covered in red Texan dirt, soaked by a much-needed thunderstorm, and happy.

2. Stroker’s Biker Bar: Dallas, TX
When I heard we were going to a biker bar, I thought “cool, a local dive bar where a bunch of dudes on motorcycles hang out.” I had no, literally NO idea the extent to which Stroker’s Bar is a phenomenon and culture unto itself. This place is a combination bar, restaurant, dealership, shop, and community hang-out in the outskirts of Dallas. The walls are works of biker-homage art, inside and out, and the patrons are characters straight out of an 80’s biker flick (do any of those exist?).

Lama and Sara got to go for a spin with a couple of leather-jacketed guys, while Bash chatted up a lovely young lass in pink undies, and Joe tried to pretend he didn’t notice the copious low-cut shirts. By and large everyone was interested and excited to have a crew filming at the bar, and the sense of community was palpable and comforting. The unashamed acceptance of the weird, the middle-aged, the unabashed good times just had to make you smile.
3. Diva Shooting Club: Dallas, TX
To be honest, there aren’t really adequate words to describe the Divas. Nominally, they’re a social club for women who enjoy the outdoors and most importantly shooting, begun in Texas and now expanded to most states and dozens of countries, as any member will be quick to tell you. But it’s also immediately apparent that this group is something much bigger for most of these women– a social outlet, a family of girlfriends, a support group for women in a man’s world. Like the bikers at Stroker’s, the overriding message is that here is a place where you won’t be judged for who you are and what you want to do, and by the way go ahead and put that tiara on, girlfriend, you deserve it.

-Lyzz