Wrappin' up Terlingua.

Friday night died down after the bands stopped playin', and people filtered off to their respective sleeping arrangements. The temps were perfect for sleepin' in that tent under all that down, looking through the no-see-'em netting at all the stars filling the sky. I tell ya, I can sleep better in a tent than anywhere. I think Denise had a good time too.



We made a trip to the showers about mid day Friday, and I think she went again with some folks Saturday. They're coin operated, in the back of a hotel down the road in Study Bute. Costs about $2. I just stayed smelly from Friday till I got home Sunday afternoon. But hell, everyone, even the clean ones, smelled of dust, wood smoke and BBQ all the time, so nobody cared.



Found these few remnants of the previous nights festivities, pulled out of the cup holder on the arm of my folding chair. That wrapper is for a Taino cigar... One of the cheap ones I got a while back. I've been steadily smoking them, getting them out of the way so I can experiment some more. They're OK, nice and strong, but don't burn very evenly. Guess that's why they were so cheap.



The cooks (that's Dave) were secreted away in their various kitchens, cooking their chili so they could enter them in the contest.



After they all finished and entered their chili, there was several hours to kill. Many people set up displays and gave their chili away to people who would walk by camp and sample all the different entries. Lots of interesting costumes began to be drug out, and things were getting interesting, but my mind was on other things.

I knew that there was going to be a special contest at the other rival cook-off down the road, and I wanted to go there and see it. I'd heard for years that this other cook-off was wilder, but I'd never been able to really experience it. I'd gone over there in 2006, late on Saturday, to watch the chili judging, but other than the traffic and the noise and dust, I hadn't seen anything to exciting. One guy in the group had a son who went to the college in Alpine. He told us that his son had gone over there in 2005 (the year I didn't go - busy rafting the Colorado) and that the local grocery store wouldn't develop the pictures he took there. Hearing that, I told myself that I needed to go over there and take the digital camera.

Back in the frontier days, there was a term people used for going and seeing something interesting, or special, or unusual. They'd say they were "goin' the see the elephant".



Well, I guess I can say that I've seen the elephant. As in most cases, the reality of the spectacle really didn't live up to the hype, but it was still interesting, and I'm glad I went to the trouble to go, even though I caught hell from Denise for doin' it.

There were a few good looking women there, walking around topless, being given beads by admirers as they drove or walked by. Reminded me of the pictures I've seen of Mardi Gras, before mother nature flushed the commode and put a dent in the fun down in New Orleans.

Most of the topless ladies were lookin' hard and leathery, like they'd spent WAY too much time in the sun, with their top off, maybe on the back of a chopper. There were hilarious vehicles runnin' all over the place. Some were chopped up old beaters that looked like they were only held together with bailing wire. And then there were cool things like this.



That's an old hot air balloon gondola, rigged to run around like a car. Amazing.



There were Brewster county sheriffs deputies all over the place, making sure all the revelers were of age. I took this one for the Goddess. Enjoy babe.



See what I mean? An old suburban, or something, turned into a fun wagon for the cook-off. We saw this one being trucked out through Alpine on Sunday, after all the fun was over.



The special contest I went there to see was going to be held in a gully, on two flat beads parked in the shape of a T. The contest was to see which of the lady contestants had the nicest boobs. The prize was on display in the hands of one of the organizers.



This lady was taking in donations from the crowd. The contestants competed for money gathered from the onlookers. I understood that this time they had collected about $800. Now, what would you take off for $800 cash, tax free?



The organizers were trying to get these ladies to join the contest, but they declined. The contestants are all checked out by the cops to make sure they are old enough, and the cops were even checkin' the IDs of the onlookers. I saw them haulin' one guy off in cuffs for being too young to see the show.



There's a granny who enters the contest each year. She got the best applause, and the loudest cheers from the audience.



This little lady was a real trooper, dancing around and givin' herself a real work-out. She was probably a ringer. Maybe a professional stripper. Who knows?



And there were more cool cars. all over the place.



Back in the calmer camp, getting the cold shoulder from Denise, I watched the judging for chili.



The guys we were with were basically shut out. Had to go home happy with the wins on Friday, gripin' about how it always seems that the same people win every time.



More good food was brought out for us to eat, in this case one pot of taters and peas, and the other full of chicken fried steak strips.



The entertainment that night was given my Mark David Manders and his band. They played a set of mostly Texas country, with lots of fun and playin' around in the mix. We'd been hangin' with these folks all the weekend, and had gone with them to see DOM.



They played for a few hours, and we had a good time.



In the morning, Sunday, it was timer to break everything down and make the drive back to Killeen.



On the way we had to go through a border patrol checkpoint. We were tellin' Denise to keep her mouth shut, just in case the cops heard that foreign accent. We were jokin' of course. We stopped at a BBQ place in Llano for lunch, and made it back to Killeen by about 4PM.

Anyway, I've got to get off this thing and drive Denise and a friend of hers back to Fredericksburg today, so I'm off. Eventually I'll have all my Terlingua pictures on FlickR, so you can scroll through them all. Anyway, I'm off. Cheers.