A little place called "Serenity."

For the past few summers, one of the highlights for us is to spend a long weekend right outside of Tarpley, Texas, at a ranch owned by Suzanne's aunt and uncle. It's been a while, but you remember Suzanne, my beautiful trophy wife don't you? So this past weekend, we loaded up the family and headed on down.

After a long, five hour car ride with Suzanne and the three children in the back, we finally reached our destination. Although, we enjoyed the hours of "how much longer," "I'm hungry" and of course my favorite, "I need to go potty," we were happy to arrive.

This place is so nice, it even has a name, "Serenity." Now I've owned several homes in my lifetime, visited many others, but not many of them have had an actual name, so you know this is quite a place. I don't know how big it is, and I would never ask, but I imagine that if I started out one on side of it and walked to the other side, I'd probably have to stop halfway, set up camp, spend the night, and start again in the morning.

As we got out of the car and started to unload, we were greeted by "Uncle Tommy." The easiest way to describe Tommy, is to imagine the late Dave Thomas, from the old Wendy's hamburger commercials. He could have easily been a stand in. Next, "Aunt Doodle" came out. Her real name is Ann, but her friends call her "Doodle." She has told me, though, that I can call her Ann. Aunt Doodle, though, is great to be around. She's the type of person that if you find at a party, get close to her because you know that you are going to hear some great stories, as she is a great story teller. She is also quite the Spurs fan as well. I've been told that if you talk bad about the Spurs, you will find that your visit may be shortened.

One of the joys for us and the kids is to settle in and then ride in the Ranger. What is a Ranger you ask? Imagine a cross between a golf cart on steroids, and the old car from "The Beverly Hillbillies." It is a souped up four wheel drive golf cart with an elevated seat in the back. The first night we always get a guided tour from Uncle Tommy. What I didn't tell you before is that Tommy and Doodle have exotic animals from Africa and surrounding parts on their property. They have elans, orecks, and several types of African deer. Of course, they have cattle as well. On these tours we seem to see most of the animals, and since a trip to Disney World is out of the question, this is a great fit for our kids. By the way, of all of our friends who have been to Disney World, they never had Walt Disney personally take them on the tour, just sayin...

It's kind of ironic that they have the African animals on the ranch, because summers there can be, well "Africa hot." Garrison, the heir to the Millender fortune, and I rode one of the days on the Ranger, and we got close to several of the Elans. I felt sorry for them, and then I realized, this was much cooler than their homeland.

Garrison and I rode around for a while pretending to be cowboys on the ranch, he started complaining that it was hot, and so and then we went back and did what every authentic cowboy would do, we jumped in the pool and had several beers. Well I did, Garrison had root beer, or sasparilla, as the old guys used to say. Then we turned on the tv, and took a nap. Yep, that's ranch "livin."

I guess we can mark off our ranch trip for the summer of 2011. We greatly appreciate the invitation and the good old southern hospitality that Uncle Tommy and Aunt Doodle extend to us. Hopefully, as long as nothing is spilled, broken, ripped, stained, or turned over, we will be returning next summer.

Oh, and Lindy would like a hippopatamus for the creek. Tommy....can you make that happen?