A wonderful weekend with a troubling end

Friday Marla invited us to a party in their neighborhood on Saturday. Since it's a long drive over there, she suggested we bring the dogs with us and stay overnight. They have 3 dogs; our Julienne likes to bark and we think Shorty might mark territory, so when we left Saturday at noon, we took along their sleeping kennels. We took advantage of being in the San Antonio area again to do some shopping, then invaded Marla's house. Marla's friend Kim made buffalo chicken dip and then she made this wonderful thing - chocolate chip and M&M cookie dough dip! 

It's not quite cookie dough because there's no eggs in there, but it's pretty close. You are supposed to dip it up with graham crackers or vanilla wafers, but I found a spoon works just as well.

The party was for a neighbor who is being deployed for a year. Chris a career soldier and this is his 6th deployment, so they have had practice throwing a deployment party. The hosts brought Bob Miller BBQ and guests brought side dishes. The food was good but the company was better - these are good people. I talked to a lady for about an hour about our families before we finally got around to introducing ourselves. Randy hung around with the guys and I don't know what they talked about, but drinking seemed to be a necessary part of the conversation. I had a tiny sip of a maple liquour that took my breath away; the guys mixed it with with mango and it smelled wonderful, but I knew I couldn't handle it. Eventually most of the ladies moved to Marla's house where the karaoke was set up. Marla, Kim, my new friend Katherine and Chris's wife Angela all sang several songs while the rest of us applauded. They sang songs by artists like Rhiranna, Chaka Khan, and Erykah Badu; I didn't know most of them but my new favorite songs is "Tryone". Later the guys joined up - apparently it takes more alcohol for these guys to sing, but once they got started, look out! Chris is a tall, husky, broad-shouldered serviceman who looks like a linebacker but when he got up, he did a perfect Micheal Jackson impersonation. He was so good that his audience responding by holding up lighters (BBQ lighters, since nobody smokes anymore). Later his friend sang a gospel like a pro; there are a lot of good singers in this neighborhood. The party broke up around 1 a.m. with the extra blessing that nobody had to drive "under the influence" - they just walked home. 

Sunday we got up and went to Bussey's Flea Market, where they have several hundred vendors. Even so, we couldn't find a horse blanket or Mexican rug, which is what I was looking for. We had breakfast at Bob Miller's BBQ, but they don't do breakfast nearly as well as they cater. Next we went back to Marla and Lance's to say goodbye, then headed south for 95 miles to visit with other friends. We came to Texas to start gate-guarding, and our friends from Arizona/Alaska are doing that job now, just south of of Fowlerton. We spent a couple of hours visiting with them, catching up on what's been going on and getting tips about how to have a successful gate-guarding session. Now all we need is a gate!

It was over 110 miles back our RV. Randy stopped to get some Church's chicken on the way to pick a quick dinner, while the locals passed by...

and we went back to our RV to relax. Then he discovered a soft spot on our RV floor. That means rotted wood. That took the shine off the day.