The Ride Along!

Today has been great. Our dear friend Rick arrived early this afternoon, from Nicaragua! We were expecting him to arrive around dinner time and the funniest thing happened. Around 1:30, Tony and I left for Kerrville, but we didn't get very far, because when we drove up to the gate, we saw a little red car parked and Rick was standing there leaning on the gate.

When Tony opened the gate, I said, "Rick, how long have you been out here?"

"I just got here about a minutes ago." After howdies and handshakes, we invited Rick to go with us to Kerrville, so he locked his rental car and climbed into the backseat and became the ride along.

Our first stop was at Wolfmueller's, so I could pick up a cookbook that I had ordered, for a gift. When we walked inside Sandy & Jon's bustling bookstore, Jon looked up and greeted us and then Sandy walked up and greeted us, too.

Sandy & Jon are friends with Rick too, and one time they went down to Port Aransas with us, to stay on the beautiful, privately owned island, where Rick was "The Friendly Lighthouse Keeper," so the five of us had a fun, but short visit before we took off for Gibson's, because Rick wanted to buy a stove top coffee percolator and a hands-on orange juicer dish, to take back with him, to Nicaragua. And Gibson's had both of them, of course.

While Rick checked out, I found a pretty, pink vest that I wanted to check out, so Tony and Rick went outside to wait for me. When I was checking out, I looked outside and saw Tony and Rick sitting in chairs, visiting with our dear friend Jim "The Mineral Man."

Jim and Rick know each other, too, so when I went outside to join them the three men were chatting up a storm. So, we got to have a fun visit with Jim, too. "Are you & Kris going to hear Chet play at The Hunt Store?" I asked. "Rick is going with us." And Jim told us that he and Kris were planning on going, too.

"Rick, when we read Nancy's blog about them rescuing a female Great Pyrenees, Kris & I looked at each other and said, "I bet Nancy adopts her..."When we got ready to adios each other, I said, "We're going to the big H-E-B and then heading back to the ranch."

"That's where I'm going next," Jim said. "I'll see y'all there." Then we adios-ed each other.

I've never gone grocery shopping with Rick and he teased me throughout the store, by making comments like: "Sorry lady, Cousin Nancy is nearly blind and she might run her cart into you by accident. So if you see her coming, get out of the way."

Thank goodness, I only needed to pick up a few groceries, because Rick was hilarious and on a roll. When he checked out, in front of me, while I was unloading my shopping cart, he joked to the friendly cashier, "I think Cousin Nancy, right behind me, has more than 15 items in her cart, so you might want to call Security. She does this all of the time." The young woman looked puzzled and then she realized that Rick was joking, so she chuckled.

"Rick," I teased. "I'm never going grocery shopping with you again. He's been doing this to me, all through the store."

When we got back to the ranch, I fixed dinner for all of us and we ate Cousin Nancy's Peach Cobbler with Blue Bell Vanilla Ice Cream for dessert. And that's about it for tonight, because tonight we have a lot of catching up to do with Rick.

Y'all have a great evening!