Sunday

When the sun came up, I launched the drone and took a few pictures from about 1000 feet in the air of the whole event area.  The result really doesn’t do justice to the pandemonium on the ground because a bunch of people had already left by this time and because most of the significant crowds of trailers were packed in under the shade of the pecan trees, so they can’t be seen from the air.  If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see the trailers scattered all over the place, particularly near the exhibition barn.

Last night was like some big party with people driving back and forth in their golf cars and quads until late at night.  We could hear the horses occasionally.  Despite the no-smoking policy, smoking and vaping were common.  Must be that the policy isn’t enforced all that much.

We walked to First Baptist Church again.  What a blessing to worship with this congregation at a church which holds true to the gospel.  We could definitely go here if we lived here.  The walk to and from church was also pleasant, as today dawned clear and cool and turned out to be a fantastic day.

When we came back, we had lunch at Pure Taste, an on-site restaurant run by Chef Kue.  We ran into him the first day we were here.  He loves to talk and was describing how he was a lineman for the telephone company for many years and felt called to go to culinary school.  Then he made an arrangement with the Boys and Girls Home to have this on-site restaurant, so he’s here during all the events that go on.  He took a big pay cut to come here, but he is able to be home with his family a lot more.  He was describing his chili-burger so today we ordered a chili-burger, which is a traditional hamburger with chili.  The burger was fantastic.  We’ll have to try this at home.

The afternoon was low-key, it’s nice to have a day to catch up on things, to watch the sermon from church back home, and even take a nap.  The horse trailers were streaming out during this time, and by about 4pm, the place was nearly empty and eerily quiet.  About the only thing left were piles of horse poop left all over the place, overflowing trash cans, and beaten down grass.

We moved back to our original campsite behind the exhibition barn.  And here we were introduced to another job that was perhaps unanticipated: scooping poop.  Several piles of the stuff were scattered around near our campsite, so we dutifully cleaned it all up and rinsed off the grass so we wouldn’t walk through any of it.

This evening was spent connecting with family, via video calls with siblings and phone calls with kids and parents.

Tomorrow it’s back to work.  Last week here, then we head towards home starting on Thursday.  Time has gone quickly...