Texas-Size Fun (Part 3)

I love it when a plan comes together! After picking up Scott and Cristina after the high-speed van and cab chase, we had lunch, then headed to the lovely Gruene River Inn, a fourteen-room structure sitting high over the banks of the gorgeous, gin-clear Guadalupe River in Gruene, Texas, just outside New Braunfels. We checked in-our rooms were adjacent down a wood plank hallway. Jane and I were in the San Marcos room, Vin was in the Frio room, Randall and Kate occupied the Llano and Scott and Cristina took the Blanco room.

I knew the band's schedule-sound check at 5:00 P.M., so Scott, Jane and I went to the hall to await their arrival-we had made up some gift bags for the guys with T-shirts, koozies and shot glasses from the Carolinas along with some wood pens and winestoppers I turned on the lathe. Their white van and trailer pulled in front of Gruene hall for the load-in and we said "hi" to all the guys. Cody took me and Scott out to the van, took out his laptop and showed us some fishing picture from the Salmon River when he dropped his fishing rod in the 10 foot deep and cold water and had to go scuba diving to retrieve it. He also showed us some photos of his new fiancee-he had taken her to Ireland to propose the week before.

We had dinner planned at The Gristmill, located just behind the music hall- a place highly recommended by blog friends Christina and Dash (his blog name), whom we had planned to meet there for dinner. They were accompanied by their four-year old daughter, referred to as "Wee One" in their blogs- A cuter and more well-behaved young lady, you'll never find! (Christina posted a pic of both their daughters on her blog recently. Dash is a big hunter and he'll need all his guns when the guys start showing up in droves at their house)! We had a fantastic meal and although none of us had met Christina or Dash before, we hit it off immediately. I insisted that Christina recount some of the funny stuff she has written about, especially her Vietnamese mother's "butchering of the english language" for those that hadn't read her blog and the whole table was horselaughing. The dinner was over in a flash and Christina had to pick up their eldest daughter from the football game-quick goodbyes were said. I had heard others write about what a sweet person Christina was and all I can say is that they are absolutely "spot-on." Dash went back with us to Gruene Hall and round after round of Shiner Bocks and Lone Stars were ferried from the bar to the position we staked out near the stage. We had to endure an opening act by a miniature female lead singer and her band of men whose tremendous height further accentuated her small stature. I would characterize her style of music as "Nashville Ho- Shit"-my own term for female acts that are basically cleavage, crotch and cliches-so my guess is that by next year she be accepting all the CMA awards. She seemed to have a good voice but her band was so loud that you couldn't make out the lyrics-probably a good thing now that I think of it. What bothered me about her were two things-she had about ten times more enthusiasm than her act merited-she kept trying to get everyone to come up to the stage, mostly unsuccessfully and she kept exhorting us to clap along or whatever. If you have to beg your audience, you probably don't deserve it. The other thing is that her jeans were so tight they looked like denim spandex. I thought they might cut off her circulation and her legs would fall asleep and she would pitch over. I thought I could make out the date on the quarter she had in her back pocket. Vin's dad is a urologist and he says that the wearing of jeans this tight could cause cystitis, although the Mayo clinic does not mention such a phenomenon. After about 20 beers, the term "cystitis pants" is damn funny and we beat that to death the whole trip. After a too long set, "cystitis pants" and her band left the stage to thunderous applause-from us mainly who were glad to finally see her wiggle her ass off the stage.Our boys took the stage about 15 minutes later to a now jam-packed house. We were about ten feet away-everyone there seemed to know the lyrics to every song and at least three times they had the crowd jumping up and down so violently the floor seemed to be on the verge of collapse. By the end of the night, we were all completely horse from singing and screaming and drinking and generally acting like fools. After the show, I reloaded on CD's since I'd either given mine away to friends or played them so much they were worn out. We got some great pics with the guys and hung out with them for a good while. I was not aware that the place closed at midnight-Dash and I were talking and sipping on fresh Lone Star's and when the clock struck 12:00, a deputy sheriff came up to us and took the beers right out of our hands-damn!

It was back to the hotel where we all sat on the back balcony having a few more toddies and more than a few laughs-Vin and Scott got into an ice throwing fight and someone committed a "party foul" by knocking over a table and spilling a fresh drink. Vin's back door and front door were open and some weasly guy suddenly appeared at the front door telling us that some couple upstairs couldn't sleep because we were making too much noise. We basically blew him off and kept on with our ruckus and ten minutes later he was back at the door with what he termed our "second warning." Little did he know that five of us were lawyers (an occupation that embeds general "wiseass tendencies" into your DNA-tendencies which are further exacerbated by the consumption of brown liquor, tequila or red wine), so his warning actually served to increase the noise. I wanted to know how many warnings we were entitled to and if we exceeded said limit, what that little praying mantis looking man was gonna do about it at 2:00 A.M. Others raised similar points and we beat that around until finally someone got up to go to bed which broke all our momentum-it was time to say goodbye to Dash and turn in. It had been an 18 hour funfest and we were all tired and horse, with our ears still ringing with the music from Gruene Hall.