No Store Does More! Part II!

Continued from yesterday....
Early Monday morning Tony and I were outside feeding the dogs and cleaning their pens before the sun came up and the dogs seemed to enjoy their surprise sunrise breakfast. When we were done outside I had only thirty minutes to get cleaned up, so I could get on the road by 8:30.


At 8:24 I kissed T. inside the trailer and told him, "I love you. Wish me luck!" and as I opened the front door to leave I closed the door and headed to the kitchen table. "I almost forgot to take my "Rescue Remedy" drops that Ellen bought for me at Whole Foods, to help me stay calm when Sandy drives us to San Antone." Then I put five droplets of the "Rescue Remedy" into a glass of water and swallowed. "Now, I am ready to leave," I said, as I slipped the little bottle into my purse, in case Sandy's driving drove me to drinking—more drops.


When Trigger and I arrived at Wolfmueller's Book Store I was six minutes early and Patty and Sandy were ready to go and get our road trip started. "Nancy, you ride in the backseat, so you can't see the speedometer and Patty, you sit up here with me," Sandy said, as she handed me a plastic bag, "I put a few magazines and maps about Terlingua for you to read, when we get on the freeways."


"Thank you, Sandy." Then we climbed into Sandy's SUV, buckled up, waved goodbye to Jon and took off and we were already laughing before Sandy pulled out of the parking. After we had all caught up with each other's latest news Sandy and I started telling Patty about our exciting, upcoming adventure to Terlingua and Patty thought it sounded real cool. 


Everything was fun and fine until we got on the entrance ramp of I-10, at Comfort, because Sandy floored her "Car With No Name" and that's when I opened up the sack of articles to read about Terlingua, as we sped past one car and then many cars sped past us. As I clutched my hands, and tried to relax the "Rescue Remedy" kicked-in, thank goodness, because I instantly became fearless of Sandy's race car driving skills and the San Antone traffic, for the rest of the day. Thank you, Ellen! 


As we approached the Alamo City limits we decided to go to Whole Foods first and I must admit that I was extremely impressed how well Sandy knew her way around the streets of San Antonio. 


When the three of us walked into Whole Foods we grabbed grocery carts and then we followed each other up the isles as Sandy and Patty suggested some of their favorite foods I might want to try. I had a blast at Whole Foods, strolling the isles of healthy food with my friends as we laughed about this and that. And I ended up buying Sha Sha Ginger Snaps, Hatch Chile Goat Cheese, Amy's Lentil Soup, 365 Organic German Mustard, Near East mixes: Couscous Toasted Pine Nut, Wild Mushroom and Herb, and Quinoa Blend Roasted Red Pepper and Basil, organic bread, cheddar cheese and Patty's favorite Acai Green Superfruit Tea made by The Republic of Tea.


 When we arrived at P. F. Changs for an early lunch, around 11:00, the restaurant was nearly empty except for ten people, sitting at three tables, so one of their young, pretty waitresses walks up to us, who was obviously having a bad day, led us across the room to a table, in a dark corner, because it was right next to a giant, hanging, black, plastic, temporary wall covering and the three of us looked at each other and one of them said, "We don't want to sit here could we please sit somewhere else? Like a booth?"


She tried to make a smile, but she couldn't pull it off and then she led us over to a booth and then walked away. Even though I was feeling no pain because of Ellen's magic drops, I was worried about the waitress' bad vibes souring our lunch, but thank goodness I didn't have to worry long, because the nicest woman, wearing a big smile, came over to our table, introduced herself to us, handed us menus and then she asked us what we wanted to drink and then she went to get our drinks and that's when we let out a group sigh of relief that we had a fun waitress and lunch was going to be fun after all.


As we drank our iced teas we decided to order several dishes and share them and when the friendly waitress returned to take our order Patty surprised us when she said, "I am treating my friends to lunch and we want to share the dishes. We'd like to have Dynamite Chicken, Lettuce Wraps.."


As we dined at P. F. Chang's their lunch crowd filled up the restaurant and the food we ate was absolutely delicious and the many topics of conversation were interesting to say the least and were filled with laughter.


Our last stop was at Target, because Sandy and Patty love Target and also because I have not been inside a Target store since 1995, when I left Austin and moved to Utopia. When we walked inside Target I said, "Wow! Kerrville needs a Target store. I'de forgotten how cool Target is," and then we started shopping together.


An hour later we were ready to check out and the coolest thing that I purchased was a small, pretty, pink George Foreman Champ for fifteen dollars, because now I could start grilling vegetables, etc. again because I can't grill outside because of our drought and the Burn Ban effect.


As Sandy drove us home all we could talk about was how much fun we had had and what we might do the next time when Patty returns to Kerrville and when we reached Comfort and got off of I-10 it was no big deal to me, because those Rescue Remedy drops had worked and had temporarily cured me of my fear of traffic.


When we were halfway through Comfort Sandy gave Patty me and me a historical driving tour of the town and it was quite interesting and then when we got to Center Point she surprised us. "Y'all, have got to see this place!" she said, as she turned off into a parking lot, "Y'all are going to love it..."


And Sandy had not lied to us, because the second that Patty and I walked into Toucan Jim's outdoor beautiful garden restaurant and grill we fell in love with Toucan Jim's! "This is what Fort Lauderdale looks like," Patty exclaimed, as Jimmy Buffet music filled the air, as we admired the palm trees, plants and brightly painted beach furniture and bar, "Just like Fort Lauderdale."


"I feel like we just walked into a time warp," I noted, "From dry, hot Texas to Margaritaville."


"Sandy!" a man hollered from a table near the bar, "I want to buy you ladies a beer," he said as he stood up and they hugged each other. 


"Y'all this Mark, he and his wife are dear friends of ours. Mark I want you to meet my friends Patty and Nancy..."


A few minutes later Mark brought us our drinks and sat down at our table to visit with us and he had us laughing so hard my back started aching, so I excused myself and went into the restroom and swallowed a few more magic drops in hopes that it would relax my back the way it had relaxed me.


Even though Mark wanted to buy us another round of drinks Sandy declined, because she knew we needed to get home. And the rest of the way back to Wolfmuellers Books all we talked about was what a fun time we had all had.


When I got home Tony was glad to see me and me him and as he helped me carry in my shopping bags I told him all about my fun day and when he was helping me unpack my sacks he started laughing. "You bought a pink George Foreman grill! No way I'm going to cook on it," he teased, and that was not a lie, because yesterday morning after I had used it to cook breakfast and lunch and had told him how much I loved it—he took me to Walmart and bought me a giant George Foreman grill, as an early birthday present! And I love it and have named it George. 

After we left Walmart we stopped at H-E-B to quickly get a few groceries and as were checking out a nice friendly woman handed me a copy of  H-E-B's August "My Texas Life" magazine and as we walked to Trigger I flipped through the pages and nearly flipped out when I saw another full one page ad for our rescue ranch. "Tony, I can't believe this! I love H-E-B so much for helping us, again. I can't wait to show it to Kinky...."

As Trigger took us home I said, "You know Whole Foods and Target are great stores, but H-E-B is the very best in Texas, because "No Store Does More." Thank you, H-E-B! We love you!

Y'all have a great evening and please keep praying for rain for us!