Dudleys Diary

while everyone else has gone in different directions. Lizzie and her Aunt Lo have gone to the Beauty shop for a Pedicure and then were going out to eat lunch and then go play with Aunt Lo's dog. Frank went out to eat lunch with his buddy Jeff and then they are going to go out to the golf club above for 18 holes of golf. The course they are playing used to be the old base course for Carswell AFB. It is now a Naval Air Station and Joint Reserve Base and I think when they decommissioned Carswell, they must have sold off the golf course to a private developer. Looks like a pretty nice place. It is open to the public but like everything these days, it is not cheap. I think it costs 50.00 to play on weekends. I think they may include the cart rental. Frank went by the local Sports and Outdoors Store and bought 15 new balls. He said it was a mad house and to stay away. It is the before school TAX Free weekend and the shoppers are out in full force. On the way Frank called and said it looked like they are having a Tea Party Protest near a local mall. He saw a lady holding a sign proclaiming My Government, My Taxes, My Health Care! He did not see anyone brandishing any weapons like they were in Arizona last week. Texas does not allow open carry but there are those who would like to see a law passed to allow it. Dudley prefers the concealed carry law the way it is. Keep the bad guys guessing just who is carrying and who is not. We got a good rain shower yesterday morning. Frank will have to mow the yard tomorrow. Dudley's wife is getting ready to go to the store. We are going to have fried catfish and waffle fries tonight. Will watch the Rangers and eat one of Dudley's favorite things. Unable to eat shrimp any more after developing an allergy to the iodine in the shrimp after having a medical procedure done where they injected Dudley with iodine and Dudley had a reaction and had to be rushed across the street to the ER. Wish I had never had that damn test done so I could still be eating shrimp. Afraid to eat crawfish now for the same reason. Dudley enjoyed watching the Dallas Cowboys play the first game last night in the new stadium. It was awesome and the Cowboys actually played well unlike the first pre season game. Frank bought a ticket for the first regular season game against the New York Giants but he bought a Standing Room Only ticket. Dudley would rather watch the game from the comfort of his recliner.

Frank and Dudley took a detour off of the Interstate and went to the Rusty Star BBQ for a late lunch. Dudley had seen this place featured on a cooking show on the Travel channel. Anthony Bourdain had gone there with Ted Nugent who has a ranch nearby. Dudley and Frank both ate a sliced beef sandwich. Frank had a bag of chips. It was not the best BBQ Dudley has ever eaten but it was really good. Dudley saw a photo on the wall of Ted Nugent with two big whitetail bucks he had bagged. There also was a photo on the wall of George and Laura Bush. Both Ted Nugent and George and Laura Bush own large ranches in the area. On the way home, Frank went on the back roads. We drove through Valley Mills, Clifton, Meridian, Glen Rose and Granbury making it home just after the Ranger game had started. We saw quite a few beautiful Texas Courthouses driving the back roads. It was the end of a great adventure. Shooting an AR-15 and eating good Texas BBQ in the same day. Man it does not get any better than that!

to a 100 yard indoor shooting range. We took our new Bushmaster ORC and Eotech 512 Holographic Weapons Sight and had a great time sighting it in and shooting just for the fun of it. It was Frank's first time to shoot an AR-15 and he really enjoyed it. Dudley also took his new Leica Geovid 10x42 binoculars to use to check the hits on the Shoot N C targets we used. They have a built in rangefinder which were great in making sure our target was positioned at exactly 25, 50, 75 or 100 yards away from the shooting bench. We went to Red's Shooting Range in Pflugerville just north of Austin. It is a very nice range and is the only indoor 100 yard range Dudley has ever been to. It was clean and the people that worked there were helpful. The range also had one of the best ventilation systems Dudley has ever seen in an indoor shooting range and Dudley has been to quite a few. Years ago, some investors put a ton of money in a swanky shooting range near downtown Fort Worth called Shooters Palace. Dudley lived in East Texas at the time but he bought an annual membership because they offered a great deal where if you joined you got a Beretta .25 semi auto pistol. Dudley made a lot of trips back home to go shooting there. The best thing about the place was the old timey shooting gallery with the moving metal targets. You knocked the targets down with .22 rifles firing .22 short ammunition. You could eat there and if I remember they had a taxidermy shop and they had a full tactical range for law enforcement. The range was open for a few years but closed down because they were not able to generate enough income to keep the doors open,. Frank is now well versed on the safe operation and use of the AR-15. Dudley may let him take it to the range to shoot on his own with just one condition. He has to buy his own ammo! Make that two conditions, when he gets through, he has to clean it.

battery for the Jeep CJ-5 today. The old Optima Red Top Battery was over four years old and it had gotten to where it would not hold a charge. The last time Frank tried to drive the Jeep it would not start and he had to jump start it with his truck. It had only been a little over a week since he drove it last so it was time to get a new battery. This time Dudley bought an Optima Yellow Top Battery. It should last longer and be a better fit since the Jeep sits in the garage idle a lot of the time. It also will be a lot better if Frank ever buys the Ramsey Winch for the Jeep that he and Dudley have been wanting. After buying the battery, Dudley went home, we took two vehicles to the store and Frank took the Jeep up and got the State Inspection done. He then came home and switched out the batteries. That took him about twenty minutes. Dudley climbed up in the Jeep and we went up to a local hardware store and Frank went in and purchased some Velcro. When we got home we used the Velcro to secure the sun visors to the top of the windshield. They had a bad habit of falling down as you were driving when you hit a bump in the road. I am glad Frank put in the new battery, the place where we bought it wanted 45.00 for the job. Dudley can buy three boxes of bullets for that.

down in the Texas Hill Country. They are experiencing a drought down there right now that rivals the great drought of the 1950's. The rivers and creeks and lakes are drying up. The first two photos show the way this area normally looks when there is water in the river. The last three show the way the river looks now. They need some rain bad down that way and on into South Texas. Hopefully a tropical depression will come this month or next and bring some much needed rain. Dudley has been on a lot of great deer hunting trips down that way in the past and both of Dudley's kids have gone to summer camps in that area of the state. Dudley saw on the news the other day that Lake Travis right outside Austin is 44 feet low! Did I mention they need some rain down there in the Texas Hill Country? Not much going on today, am going to watch the Texas Rangers play the Angels in a couple of hours. The Rangers got beat yesterday in a one run game. They had the opportunity to win but did not come through. Frank went over and ran some errands this morning for his grandmother. After he did that he went over to his Aunt's house and took her SUV to the car wash for her. He came by the house for a few minutes to get his golf clubs and he is on the way for his annual golf outing with one of his buddies. Dudley has got to go, the dog is scratching at the back door, she wants in NOW!