Monday, March 23, 2009

Live the Dream in Silverton, TX

Apparently the welcome sign outside of Silverton, TX, population 770 used to read "Live the Dream". Unfortunately they tore this sign down some time ago.

One of my friends was born and raised in the thriving metropolis of Silverton, TX. She was hanging out at our house a week or two ago and casually mentioned her plans to go on a hike to a waterfall on some private property in Silverton. I invited myself, and then invited my cohort Whitney, who works with me at the Institution (the bank). So, this past weekend, Andy, myself, and the Cohort joined some folks in Silverton, TX, to make the hike to Linguish Falls. It was breathtaking.

Kevin from Seattle joined us. He was incredibly amused with the whole Silverton experience, being from cultured Seattle. We were amused with him. Particularly such questions as, "Do you have to have a permit to hunt hogs on someone's land?" We were also amused with his admission that he was somewhat intimidated by the cows. Here is a picture of him charging the cows in the pasture we drove through to get to our hike. He wanted to pet some cows.
Here's the cohort, Whitney:
This is my friend Jenny, from Silverton, who is responsible for the hike:
This is Jenny's dad - aka the Trail Guide (notice Jenny's appearance in the background). We had to squeeze through that hole:
We also had to weasle through this opening. Here's Andy, Whitney, and Jenny's brother Tanner at the bottom:
You don't see too many of these alive, now do you?

Little Jodi had the shortest legs of all of us, so we were wondering how she'd make it through here. Doesn't she look cute though?Here's myself, and another breathtaking picture of the rock formations. At least half of our hike was in between rock formations like this, what they call, "The Narrows".
This is a small detour we took to "Devil's Kitchen". You can kind of see where we climbed to get up here.
This is also considered "the Narrows":
Finally, at Linguish Falls:

Again, here's Seattle Kevin chillin above the waterfall:Isn't Andy cute? He was hanging out by the waterfall:
And here's our wonderful guide again:
Here's Jenny's little brother Tanner, with his dog Red. Yes, Red made the hike with us too, which was actually quite impressive. A pretty cool dog, I have to say!
And all the ladies hiking back:
The last 15 minutes of the hike was uphill on a steep incline of cleche road. I thought my lung was going to pop, and that's not an exagerration. I felt better about myself when I heard Whitney confess the same thing.

When we got back to the Young household, Jenny's parents were cooking up a storm for us hungry hikers. While they were cooking, we went on a Silverton tour. It didn't take very long. Here is the historic jailhouse. I'm supposed to be pretending to be thrown in jail. Andy decided he would yank my hair, but he's laughing so it's not very believable. Actually, I think everyone is laughing. It mostly just looks weird...
Seattle Kevin wanted a West Texas rock star band picture. This was our best attempt...
Jodi and Jenny think there was a bug on the ground they were both staring at. Jenny is actually sitting on something, but looks akwardly like she's hanging mid-air. It's a pretty terrible rock star attempt.

And last but certainly not least is a picture of the whole gang:What a fun group! Who knew that Silverton, TX, is where to live the dream?

Sunday, March 22, 2009

March 24th


People who were born on March 24th:
  • Peyton Manning, the NFL star
  • Harry Houdini, the escape artist
  • Gorgeous George, American professional wrestler
  • Tommy Hilfiger, the clothes designer
  • Fanny Crosby, the blind hymn writer
  • Steve McQueen, famous actor
  • Lawrence Furlinghetti, beat poet
  • My sweet husband
Other random facts about March 24th:
  • It was the day that Elvis Presley was officially inducted into the US Army.
  • It is World Tuberculosis Day.
Fun facts to know and tell about Andy's birthday:
  • He shares a birthday week with both of his brothers. He shares the birthday month with both of his brothers, his dad, me, my sister-in-law, and a niece. This makes March busy.
  • Because he shares birthdays with both of his brothers, he never had his own birthday party until he was a grown man.
  • One of his favorite presents was a green John Deere tractor on his 3rd birthday.
  • As long as he can remember, his parents have given him $25 for his birthday. His comment on this is, "$25 was worth a lot more as a 5 year old child than it is as a 29 year old man." This year the stakes were raised to $50.
  • Andy was named after a country western song "Me and Little Andy". That's it's own post...
  • On his 29th birthday (today), he is having a concert with Andy Wilkinson and some friends at La Diosa in downtown Lubbock
I love you, sweet husband!!!

Friday, March 20, 2009

Legal Online Stalking

If Facebook or MySpace was set to where every time you looked at someone else's profile or viewed their pictures, a message was sent to that person simply stating that their page had been viewed by you, would you be less likely to view their profile or pictures?

Why or why not?

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Chris "Sandman" Sand, the Rappin' Cowboy

During Andy's show in Alpine (the last weekend of February), he randomly met a guy by the name Chris Sand, who dubs himself the "Rappin' Cowboy". I suppose he has rights to call himself that, since there are no other rapping cowboys, at least none that I know of. We had just seen Chris perform a month or so before this in Elko, NV, and really enjoyed his show. So, Chris caught up with us for our yearly hangout at Billy Faier's house in Marathon, TX, after the Alpine show. Being somewhat of a troubadour, Chris said he may just catch up with us in Lubbock, if his travels led him our way. This past weekend, Chris came and did a little house show in our living room for about 15 of our friends.

Andy and Andy played a few songs to bring in the evening.


Then Chris took over, with his own stuff - a combination of rap, cowboy music and poetry, and his ridiculously funny humor.
Notice the campfire he brought with him. It was just what our living room lacked.
Chris sells vintage pillowcases and t-shirts with his logo screenprinted on them. They're pretty cool! Notice the merch table also duals as our dining table.
Here are a few of our friends in attendance:
(Sidenote: This is why I love Salem and Whitney.)We closed out the evening with a little jam session, where Miss Ashley Howell graced us with her beautiful voice.

The concert was excellent! If you haven't, check out Chris' website www.rappincowboy.com . I have to say "Persian Den of Sin" is probably my favorite!

Monday, March 16, 2009

"Old Age Begins at 27, Study Finds"

This is the headline from a Fox News article I read today. Apparently, I now only have less than one year left of youthfulness.

Oh well, at least I had fun at my 26th Chuck E Cheese birthday party. Here's a few pics:

(Note: In this last picture, my friend Kenneth hit the Skee Ball jackpot and won 250 tickets!!! Everyone donated their tickets to me since it was my birthday, resulting in a Chuck E Cheese teddy bear.)

I felt so blessed on my birthday with tons of messages, phone calls, and unexpected gifts! Thanks to everyone for making me feel so special!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Rattlesnake Roundup

"Welcome to Sweetwater, where we have the ugliest rattlesnakes and the prettiest women in Texas!"

This is the slogan for the annual Rattlesnake Roundup in Texas. Now that I've attended I feel like I'm much more of an authentic transported West Texan.
Here's a few closeups of the rattlers.
Apparently, Sweetwater has a beauty pageant for "Miss Snake Charmer". This is Miss Snake Charmer 2009, who I suppose inspired me...

This is the "Milk Pit" where they were milking the rattlesnakes to use their venom for medicinal and research purposes. These guys are gutsy. I guess they also inspired me...
This is the outcome of my inspiration - probably one of the gutsiest/stupidest things I've ever done. Seriously, what possessed me? I suppose I just thought Miss Snake Charmer looked so cute and cool holding that snake. Me, well I look terribly uncomfortable, as you can see - not cute and cool. I tried.

This is a snake's head that has just been chopped off. What a bizarre thing to watch. The crazy thing is, when a rattlesnake gets chopped in two, each segment of it's segregated body still moves. See the tongue?
A bucket of snake heads. Need I explain?
Here is the skinning station. Notice how cute these girls are that are skinning snakes. Only in West Texas.
This is where the inspiration stopped. Isn't this wild? I just can't get over it...
You know you are in West Texas when you see this in someone's yard.
I'm not real sure what this was all about. Any ideas? Andy and our new friend, Chris "Sandman" Sand, the Rappin' Cowboy (more to come on him) took a forlorn picture with the poor little fellow/lady. Chris did a better job looking forlorn.
I guess Chris was overtaken with the fellow/lady and proceeded to make the moves on him/her/it. To each his own.

These guys were my company to my first authentic Rattlesnake Roundup experience. I feel fulfilled in a weird sort of way.