My Mexican Adventure

After a long absence, I started attending church again and was drawn to the idea of going on a Missions Trip. I can’t say definitively that it was a calling but I later learned it was all preplanned, which will become clearer later.

We attend Compass Church whose motto is, “Navigating People to God” which in my case, is an understatement. The opportunity first arose last year but as I prepared, I tested positive for Covid and was unable to attend. This year, all vaccinated and boosted, I got my checklist and began my journey.

The Mission was for a “Legacy Partner” of the church, Ninos de Mexico. In 1966, a young couple from Missouri made a trip to Mexico to assess how they could best work to meet needs and evangelize the people. They were met in Mexico City by veteran missionary Dean Cary. They decided to begin a program that would later be called “Niños de Mexico.”  In January of 1967 they moved to Mexico to begin the work.

In 1978, an office was opened in Union, Missouri to provide communications with U.S. churches and to take care of the business end of the expanding ministry.

Since then, many faithful house parents, staff, and volunteers have cared for and shared the love of Christ with the kids they foster. Today, there are nine homes in three Mexican states, Mexico City, Puebla and Veracruz.

The Mission was medical and we would provide simple medical care to those in need and, as it turns out, the need is great. We would concentrate on wound care, pain management, some nutrition, comfort and prayer over difficult medical diagnosis. We had a mix of medical professionals supervising lay people to provide that care and to minister to those we were there to serve.

I was one of those who crossed over from the lay people. During my law enforcement career, I had been a certified Emergency Medical Technician when I flew helicopters about a hundred years ago with the San Diego County Sheriffs Department. So, imagine my apprehension in working on folks in a foreign land who knew about as much English as I knew Spanish. Not to mention we would be living and working in what I can only describe as deepest, darkest rural Mexico.

DFW Art (What's the message here?)

Now, I’ve traveled extensively in other foreign countries. Ok, full disclosure, I’ve been on some cruises to vacation spots where we traveled in air-conditioned buses and hung out at some cool beach resorts. This, it turned out, was NOT your Cruise Director's Mexico.

After landing in Mexico City, we were taken to the Niños main compound where the staff and some foster kids reside. We spent an evening with the Esperanza home parents and kids. We introduced ourselves and the young boys told us about themselves and their career aspirations as we dined with them. They were happy and well cared for. Though Christianity is always present in the homes, religion is not pushed on them and they choose whether to worship God or not. The focus is keeping them in school and becoming productive citizens. 

I too had been a foster parent to my son as well as hanging around other foster homes during my career as a cop and could see these kids were thriving. Kudos to the house parents who were mentoring those kids. They have a lot to be proud of.

The next day, we packed up and headed to attend church in the City of Puebla. It was a small church with both American ex-pats and Mexican worshipers.

My wife and I attend a pretty, what I like to refer to as a “high octane” Big Box church in Colleyville, Texas. A large auditorium worship center with theater seating and a full rock band musical cast with sound, lighting and big screen video displays that could compete with most major concert venues.

This little church had a nice auditorium with folding chairs and windows providing the lighting and a small pulpit at the head of the room. The “I.T. Department” consisted of two parishioners mounting an iPhone on a tripod to video and upload the sermon to their website.

The Worship Pastor had a simple six-string guitar and his associate had an electronic “beat box” to accompany him as they led the congregation in worship. One of the pastors was in charge of the laptop displaying the lyrics on a big-screen TV, but was so into the music that he would forget to forward the lyric text so the lead Pastor had to run up and hit the “enter” button to move the lyrics forward. The church also runs a seminary and we were treated to two of their students. This is where I could tell I was supposed to be on this Mission as I mentioned at the start.

The message was from the Book of Psalms 27:1-14 where God is speaking through David to all of us (especially me) about the uncertainties of life. David was being pursued by King Saul who was trying to eliminate David as a threat to his reign as well as a bunch of the surrounding countries who were threatening to topple and enslave the Israelites. Basically, Gods telling David not to worry or be scared in that God is watching over him (and us, well…me) and to trust in Him rather than take on the problems of the world by yourself. God will equip us with whatever the situation requires and we’ll get through it.

Realize this sermon was conducted in Spanish but Steve Ross, the Executive Director of the Niños program who was supervising the Mission, was handwriting the message in English and passing the notes to us to understand the sermon. It was a change of pace to see how this little church was celebrating their members and supporting them openly with prayers for individual families and recognition of new members who were going through struggles in their lives.

Afterwards, all of us moved to a fun restaurant which produced Lebanese inspired Mexican food (yep...that’s what I thought too). Antigua Taqueria La Oriental (yeah…name is weird too), is part of a small chain of restaurants who whip up really tasty beef on a spit which is served in bowls along with cheese and onions in what they refer to as “Arabese style.” Their tortillas are handmade and are thicker (more like pita bread) than the traditional thin corn tortillas we’re accustomed to. They also had their own hot sauces which were fabulous.

We then drove to our home base at the Hotel Villa Del Rey in Zaragosa, Puebla, Mexico. It is an economy three  story hotel with an attached restaurant called the Cielo Azul where we took our breakfast and evening buffet style meals. They were simple but filling and delicious meals which we would eat while discussing the day's agenda and the evenings where we would reflect on the day’s activities. Lunches were provided at the site of our clinics by the locals who we were serving. It’s important to note that these lunches were locally farmed chicken, corn, beans, fruit, rice and vegetables. All the food, as well as the handmade corn tortillas and salsas, were all freshly made and were extraordinary. Mind you, the people we served in each of the clinics we ran, live in abject poverty and the food they gave us could have been sold for profit, bartered for other food or services or eaten by them but which they sacrificed as a thank you for our service to them. A very humbling experience for all of us.

Our team consisted of our nominal leader Chad, his wife and nurse Sara, their daughter Lorna, an aspiring nurse like her Mom, Pamela, our second nurse, Missionaries Carolyn and Sherrie, layman Ernie, Steve Ross of Niños de Mexico who brought along four foster boys Carlos, Jesus, Oscar, Gabriel and myself. We piled ourselves into two vans loaded with supplies and headed out.

The first clinic was a small church in the mountains above Puebla called Chilapa in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. In their modest assembly hall, we cobbled together a medical clinic and pharmacy with tarps and a lot of duct tape to treat patients, some of whom had to travel great distances to attend. Many had not seen competent medical help in several years.

Our Spanish speakers, Chad, Steve, Ernie, Pamela and the Niños kids, did triage and probing questions as to their chief complaints while Lorna and I took vital signs and Sara diagnosed and treated more serious patients. Pamela ran an IV station which mixed medications or vitamins into hypodermics or IV bags for injection into patients. Many just needed vitamins and pain medications like Tylenol which Sherrie and Carolyn dispensed in sealed sandwich bags. Realize these people had full time jobs or worked farms in rural Mexico with little access to a drug store or the means to purchase common medications we take for granted over-the-counter or by prescription. Many had very demanding physical jobs without the OSHA safeguards or modern machinery we’re familiar with; so many came to us with serious occupational injuries, some new, some old. Our only remedies might be a short supply of Tylenol or Ibuprofen to ease their pain. Sometimes it was that and Prayer Warriors Carolyn and Sherrie praying with them for comfort and healing.

After six hours with a lunch break, we would tear down the clinic, repack and head back down the hill to home base to recover and regroup for the next day.

Our next clinic was in an assembly hall in the town of Contla also in the state of Puebla. We arrived to a waiting line of townspeople as we quickly set up the clinic and began taking in patients. We were now getting into a rhythm where the team, after recreating the various stations, just took up where we had left off the day before. It was always touching to watch these proud people stoically wait in line, sometimes in the rain, waiting to be seen and upon leaving, making a point to shake our hands and thank us for helping them, then watching them begin their sometimes very long walks home.

After tearing down that clinic, as we drove off, a woman and her two children we had seen at the clinic insisted we stop at their home so they could give us some fruit from their farm. As we approached their home, they came running out in the pouring rain to hand us the bags of fruit. Again, these were fruits they could have sold or eaten themselves but were willing to give to us as thanks for serving them. They were literally sharing the fruits of their labor with us.

On the long drive back, I witnessed something I had never seen. I watch a lot of documentaries and have seen videos of people plowing fields or hand raising livestock, but that day I saw my first upfront view of a donkey pulling a man and an old-time plow cutting furrows in the soil, back and forth, on this little plot of land in the rain. I can add that during the week we drove around, I never saw one mechanized tractor or support vehicle. These folks did everything driving animals by hand or jury-rigged old pick-up trucks to carry people or products around the area.

The last clinic was in the town of Libertad, Puebla, Mexico, another modest assembly room used as a community center and church for Sunday services. It was situated on a dirt road with working corn fields around it. As we drove up, there were already about 40 men, women and children waiting patiently on plastic chairs under a flapping blue tarp on the entry patio.

We quickly unloaded and moved everything inside. A pharmacy was established along with a “doctors office” for Sara and a cordoned off area for intravenous therapy for Pamela. While creating the IV area, I noted some orange paracord wrapped around one of the interior pillars. One of our leaders, Chad’s, calling cards is the orange paracord he brings each year used to hang plastic tarps to wall off the treatment areas. There are bits and pieces of cord everywhere we go. I pointed this out to Chad remarking that he left his mark the last time they conducted a clinic there. We all laughed but when he reflected on that moment at the end of the days debrief, he got a little emotional when describing his feelings at seeing the cord, reminding him and us of how we don’t always see the impact our little clinics have on the people we see, but the evidence is there that we showed up and did our best to make a difference even for those few hours we were serving those people.

Taking Vitals

After the tear down and drive back to our hotel, we were asked to sum up our experience over the last five days after dinner. Many had moving stories of cases they had handled or interactions with some of the patients. Everybody remarked how good they felt helping those people in need and how thankful their patients were with just receiving some vitamins for their kids or some Tylenol for their Arthritis.

Everyone was also moved by the food brought for us at each clinic by the organizers. They were simple but filling meals from volunteers from their own pantries and kitchens. One Pastor at Libertad put it succinctly, he said they wanted to make the meal as memorable as possible as incentive for us to want to return next time. A brilliant marketing strategy if you ask me.

Our last full day was a touristy day at the Pre-Columbian pyramid city of Teotihuacán located in a valley below a volcano (location, location, location). The vast settlement with its stepped pyramids, temples and platforms lining a central 'avenue of the dead’ so impressed the Aztecs they named it the place where gods were created. We are all still intrigued, and archaeologists continue to debate who built this ancient city. Luckily the museum was bi-lingual and I got to roam around looking at the ancient artwork.

The walk through the site was awesome. All these temples on either side of the main street rising above us, were all part of a vast network of cityscape that’s still being excavated today. All were built with millions of volcanic rocks held together by early mortar as strong as the first day it was applied.

On site is an interesting restaurant. La Gruta (The Grotto) is in a below ground cave. In 1906, a restauranteur decided putting a restaurant underground would attract visitors from Teotihuacán and he was right. Lots of famous people have dined there including painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, writer Jorge Luis Borges and Queen Elizabeth II.

After a really full day of playing tourist, we headed back to Mexico City along Mexico’s government highways. I can dedicate a whole other Blog entry on the various exhibits of crazy driving I witnessed that would draw the ire of all of the State and Highway Patrols I’ve been associated with. Not to mention their “speed bumps” (yes...on the highway) which are significant and the use of strategic “dips”, literally reverse speed bumps which, if unprepared, can send your head into the overhead.

The next morning, we restocked the meds for the next group coming. Then we packed and headed to the Mexico City Airport. Another experience best taken in person. When you’re used to the relative organized chaos of American airports, it can only be described as organized craziness.

Mexico City Airport Art (Seriously...who picks this stuff?)

Although I was reluctant to go, I am forever grateful to those who prodded me to go and especially to the people I had a chance to meet and serve. I do appreciate the opportunity to go on Mission and look forward to the next.

The Passing of Doug Hammons E.O.W. 12/06/2021

Doug Hammons was a friend of mine and a man of few words. But when he did speak, he had strong opinions about just about everything. He came from humble beginnings and worked every day to improve his life and those around him. Doug had a myriad number and types of jobs during his lifetime. He often spoke of his time in the military, as an electrician and in construction. But he was most proud of his time with the Denton County Sheriff’s Department. Doug was especially proud of his work promoting the Mental Health Unit rising to the rank of Lieutenant and its leader.

He was frugal with everything except when it came to his wife, Bettye. Whatever she needed he worked hard to get. Doug often remarked about the sewing budget they had established from his sound gig money, so she would be kept in material so she could keep producing her beautiful quilts.

They were long-time residents of Little Elm where they both served their community back in the day when old-timers referred to it as Little Elum. Both were some of the first volunteer firefighters in their town and both served as paramedics for the Department. For a time, Doug served as Chief. Bettye was a long-time bus driver for the school district.

When I was first invited to their home, I couldn’t help but notice the rural flavor of the place. Little Elm has grown significantly in the past few years as most of North Texas has, but turning south onto South Hillside Drive brought you back to days gone by and Doug liked it that way. There was the dusty dirt road, the pump house, the house, the barn and pasture. You felt like you had entered the set of Lonesome Dove waiting for Robert Duvall to ride out. I often kidded Doug for living in a nature preserve when he complained of the coyotes, snakes, raccoons and armadillos wandering through their property and under their house. But he never complained about seeing the deer coming from the Corps property behind their home.

After retirement, he came to the Court Security Officer Program at the Federal District Court for North Texas in Plano, Texas. That’s where we met and became co-workers and friends. That’s where I learned of his true passions….music and sound production. He convinced me to join him on several occasions to help load-in, hoist light bars, run cable, tear down and load-out. Doug had a great ear and could make any “fool on a stool” sound amazing. On each occasion, Doug would inevitably smack his head into the top rail of his trailer door and bleed profusely. If anybody noticed, he had a permanent dent in his crown and it became a running joke whenever we worked together.

Doug started his musical journey back when he was in the military in Germany where he practiced the guitar and drums, joined a band and became familiar with sound equipment. He progressed to full blown sound production in later years (first Palmer Sound Productions then American Sound Productions) where he carted around his gear to various venues, big and small, from the VFW in Denton to the UNT Stadium for 4th of July and the stage at the North Texas State Fair and a week of meals at his favorite Chinese Buffet.

About that....turns out, Doug had another passion….fresh shrimp. Once inside the New China King Buffet, he would immediately head for the iced shrimp bowl and shovel copious amounts of shrimp onto a plate and go for seconds and even thirds if the management didn’t immediately close the shrimp station.

I often made fun of his southern accent, which he said he DIDN'T have and complained I was the one with an accent coming from California and how I and my cohorts were single-handedly ruining the culture of his Texas. Mimicking his accent, I actually had to use it at work to help a wayward DPS Officer get his prisoner to the prisoner sally port at the Courthouse. Doug didn’t stop laughing for about an hour. His retort was,"Ya know..that was pretty good."

If I were asked to describe Doug, the first word that comes to mind is Loyal. He was generous with what he had and would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. Whenever I was having a particularly bad day, Doug would saunter up and ask, “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” (visualize Sam Elliot speaking, yes...THAT accent)). We would retreat back to the kitchen and trade war stories until I forgot what I was upset about.

Doug was a God-fearing man and knew his Maker well. This was a comfort in his final days and assured that he would enter the promised land.

As Jesus explained it to disbelievers in John 5 verse 24:"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."

Doug Hammons leaves behind a loving wife, family and many friends. Thank you, Doug, for being in our lives. Thank you, Doug, for being my friend.

Cleburne and Midlothian, Texas

Cleburne, Texas is Johnson County's third county seat (the first being the town of Wardville, now under Lake Pat Cleburne). The lake, originally named the Cleburne Reservoir, is owned and operated by the city of Cleburne as a municipal water supply source. It was formerly known as Camp Henderson, a temporary Civil War outpost. Cleburne was well placed in early Texas history because it featured water from West Buffalo Creek, making it a stop for cattlemen on the Chisholm Trail which ran from San Antonio through Oklahoma and ended in Abilene, Kansas.

The town was named in honor of Confederate Major-General Patrick R. Cleburne, under whom many of the men had fought during the Civil War. Cleburne was born in Cork, Ireland, served with the British Army then came to America in 1849, settling in Arkansas. There he joined the Confederate cause in 1861. Interestingly, in 1864, he put forth the proposal to emancipate all slaves in order to "enlist their sympathies" and thereby enlist them in the Confederate Army to secure Southern independence. He probably got the idea because Great Britain had already abolished slavery way back in 1833. You could've probably heard crickets in the room when he presented that idea to other Southern generals. How did that conversation go, "Hmmmm, release our free labor pool, arm those same people we have been enslaving for about a hundred years.....let me think about that for a second....ahhhh, NO.". The idea died with him after an ill-conceived attack at the Battle of Franklin, just south of Nashville, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864.

The original courthouse was at Wardville. It is still in existence today at a park on the banks of Lake Pat Cleburne. The original courthouse there is the oldest log courthouse in Texas. The site was not legally close enough to the counties' geographic center, and so the population moved to the new community of Buchanan in 1856 and a new courthouse was built, which survived until at least the mid-1860s. When part of Johnson County was consolidated into Hood County the county seat was moved again to "Camp Henderson" which was renamed Cleburne in 1867. Buchanan was mostly abandoned by 1892. All that remains is the small Buchanan cemetery.

The first building used was off the town square and a two-story brick courthouse was completed on October 26, 1879. In 1882, that one was razed and a new brick building was built which included a bell tower. This was destroyed by fire on April 15, 1912. The current Prairie style Courthouse (pioneered by Frank Lloyd Wright), was completed on November 28, 1913 and was renovated in 2006.

Cleburne was primarily an agricultural center and county seat until the Santa Fe Railroad opened a major facility there in 1898. During this time, the population boomed, as it became a sizable city for the area with over 12,000 residents by 1920. The Chicago, Texas and Mexican Central Railway connected Cleburne to Dallas in 1882. Two other railroads had terminals in Cleburne. The Dallas, Cleburne, and Southwestern Railway completed a route in 1902, and the Trinity and Brazos Valley, nicknamed the Boll Weevil, operated from Cleburne from 1904 to 1924. Though the railroad is no longer vital to the town, Cleburne is still served by Amtrak.

In the 1930’s, the Civilian Conservation Corp had a camp in Cleburne, which developed Cleburne State Park southwest of Cleburne and building an earthen dam creating Cedar Lake which was completed in 1940.

Cleburne was the site of a prisoner-of-war camp for German soldiers during World War II. Texas had approximately twice as many POW camps as any other state, first because of the available space, and second, curiously, because of the climate. The Geneva Convention of 1929 required that prisoners of war be moved to a climate similar to that where they are captured (who knew?); apparently it was thought that the climate of Texas is similar to that of North Africa. Well…it does get crazy hot here and water is always an issue.

The POWs worked as laborers on local farms. Because so many men had joined the war effort, grateful farmers paid the government the prevailing wage of $1.50 per day, and the prisoner was paid eighty cents in canteen coupons. The POWs in Texas picked peaches and citrus fruits, harvested rice, cut wood, baled hay, threshed grain, gathered pecans, and chopped records amounts of cotton. The POW camps were sometimes considered too good for the captive Germans, and many a Texas community called its local camp the "Fritz Ritz."

Many Germans were happy to be captured by the British or Americans—fear of being captured by the Soviets was widespread—mostly because of Germany’s horrific conduct of the war on the eastern front. The prisoners were usually shipped in Liberty Ships returning to America that would otherwise be empty, with as many as 30,000 arriving per month. While they risked being sunk by their own U-boats on the ocean, good treatment began with the substantial meals served aboard. Upon arriving in America, the comfort of the Pullman cars that carried them to their prison camps amazed the Germans, as did the country's large size and undamaged prosperity.

We were joined by our good friends, Sara and Chad, fellow spontaneous travelers from our Chicago day trip last year. As we pulled up to Johnson County’s historic Courthouse, a decision was made (well….Sara and Diane decided) to get a coffee infusion and luckily, there was a coffee shop right there in the town square, Mug On The Square; a very roomy and clean establishment serving piping-hot caffeine concoctions. Of course, Diane had to walk away with the requisite T-shirt too.

Cleburne was fortunate enough to have the first railroad tracks in all of Texas laid there in 1866. This led to a spate of saloons, shops, businesses and wagon yards. The town got pretty wild to a point where the crime and lawlessness in Cleburne made it also known as “Little Chicago”.

We walked down the street to visit the historic Liberty Hotel opened in 1924. Being a busy stop on the Santa Fe, the hotel flourished up to the Depression but fell on hard times and disrepair until Cleburne natives Scott and Howard Dudley renovated and reopened the hotel in 2004. Unfortunately, due to renovation restrictions, we couldn’t enter the lobby unless we were paying guests. It may have to be a future overnighter.

A decision was made to head east to another historic little town, Midlothian, Texas in Ellis County. Midlothian became a settlement under the Peters Colony around 1843 and became a permanent settlement in 1848 as Hawkins Springs, a reference to a spring found on the land of the original landowner, William Alden Hawkins.

Earliest Native American inhabitants of this area were the Tonkawa Indians, but other Indian tribes also hunted in this area including the Anadarkos, Bidias, Kickapoos, and the Wacos. Early settlers had a rough time of it until Sam Houston made peace with the tribes when Texas won its independence from Mexico.

They got a post office called Barker in 1877 and the name was changed to Midlothian in 1882 or 1883. As early as 1881, the Waxahachie Enterprise newspaper referred to this community as Midlothian, thus discounting the common story about a train conductor naming it for his home in Scotland. The Santa Fe railroad came to town in 1883 and life took off for the residents. The Midlothian Oil Mill and Gin, founded in 1898, was a three-press mill. At its peak it was a 14-gin operation (ok..that’s really big).

Before the Great Depression, many businesses flourished. Cattle, cotton and later corn became the primary products. Some enjoyed substantial trade that included foreign markets. Although hard times came in the 30s through the 40s. Its biggest asset remained as a railroad hub which brought companies to produce products and get them to market.

In the early 60s, Texas Industries, a conglomerate of cement and aggregate companies that finds, mines and processes raw materials to make various products, came to Midlothian. So, little known fact, Ellis County sits atop the Austin Escarpment, a thick chalk ridge that runs in a northeast to southwest direction. It represents a 600-year potential limestone reserve needed for the manufacture of cement products and thus, Midlothian became the "Cement Capitol of Texas." Midlothian also serves as a distribution center for foreign and domestic products and imports too (i.e. Amazon, Walmart….you get the picture).

Coincidentally, our arrival just happened to be Midlothian’s Heritage Day celebration which had all of downtown shut down with booths and displays full of cool stuff to see and buy, including some of the Midlothian Police Department’s equipment including an MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected). Not sure what a city of 38,000 needs an MRAP for but there must be some creative folks who wrote the request to get one. The downtown area is a little sad; obviously there have been some better times in Midlothian's past.

We had been doing a lot of driving and we needed sustenance so the suggestion was made to go to Jimmy’s Pizza, Pasta and Subs on North 8th Street. Trying a new place is always a challenge not knowing how things will turn out but we were pleasantly surprised. Diane and I shared the Veggie Pizza, Sara had the Penne with chicken sloshing in tomato sauce. Chad had the Grilled Chicken Salad. Portions were huge and we ended up boxing and bringing our pizza home. No desserts necessary.

It was a long and winding ride back to home base but we did manage to do three important things....get out of the house, check out some history and get a good meal in an unlikely spot. Texas is chock full of little-known treasures like Cleburne and Midlothian and we will be checking out more in the future.

Lake Grapevine Cruise

So Covid is sliding into our rear-view mirror and Texas, in particular, is opening up to its residents and visitors. Just before Covid hit big, Diane and I had planned an ocean cruise with Norwegian, a five-dayer from San Diego to Mexico to test out her sea legs. Diane hadn't been on a real, lengthy cruise and this would be her first. On that fateful day, Covid was racing through the country (and the world) and suddenly, cruise ships had become Covid petri dishes for the virus and, in March 2020, they were shutting down.

The night I was preparing to fly to San Diego to meet Diane and get on the boat, I got an email from Norwegian saying "thanks for playing but we've cancelled your cruise with no new sailing date scheduled." With no other real alternative (well...except for an indefinite future cruise date to be named later), we took our refund and did a stay-cation in San Diego as, slowly but surely, everything around us began to close down as stay-at-home orders were permeating the countryside.

As we celebrated our first wedding anniversary in May of 2021, the question came up.... what are we going to do? Well, cruise lines were debating the viability of starting up with limited numbers of passengers, Covid vaccinations or not, and the end of the buffet-style dining (kind of a non-starter for me). Diane had a brilliant idea (one of the many.... many reasons I married her). How about a dinner cruise on a local lake? We have several of those here in North Texas and if there's food involved...I'm in.

Diane suggested a dinner cruise on Lake Grapevine a short drive from home (well.... for Texas standards, about 40 miles one-way). Captain Dave and  Black Watch Sailing Charters offered a cruise package including a sunset cruise with a chef created dinner on a sailing yacht. The best part is your party are all that's aboard so you get the whole boat to yourselves (how cool is that?).

Lake Grapevine is located in the heart of Dallas/Fort Worth on the northern border of the City of Grapevine (home to DFW airport). The roughly 8,000-acre lake is home to many outdoor activities like fishing, recreational boating, camping, and hiking.

Little known fact...Texas only has one, count 'em, one natural lake, which is Caddo Lake in East Texas. Everything else is reservoirs thus our struggle with water in our rapidly developing State of Texas thanks to all those recent transplants (you know who you are).

In anticipation of future water needs, in March of 1945, the U.S. Congress approved the River & Harbors Act of 1945 which, among many projects, provided for the construction of Benbrook Lake, Grapevine Lake, Lake Lavon and Lake Ray Roberts, as well as modifications to Garza Dam for the construction of Lake Lewisville. All the projects were for the purposes of both flood control and navigation. These lakes became part of an extensive floodway system that is operated in a coordinated manner to minimize flooding along the Trinity River floodplain.

The Grapevine Dam and Reservoir project, as it was originally known, was initiated in January 1948. Located on Denton Creek, a tributary of the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, the project spans both Tarrant and Denton Counties. In this area immediately north of the City of Grapevine, the Corps of Engineers obtained approximately 15,700 acres (63.5 km²) of land.

The dam is a rolled earth-fill type (scary earthen dam), 28 feet (8.5 m) thick, which spans 12,850 feet (3,920 m). The crest of the dam is located at 588 feet (179 m) above sea level.

Interesting sidelight is that just as the lake had been finished and ready to fill, heavy rains fell, unexpectedly filling the lake in weeks before all the construction equipment could be removed. A mammoth gravel washer and a towering conveyor, along with a tractor and two dump trucks, were on the lake’s floor when the dam’s gates were closed.  When the lake opened in 1952, the machinery stayed. They have lain dormant, undisturbed, since. In some dryer years, the rusting hulks lurk just beneath the surface of Grapevine Lake.

The City of Grapevine's story began in 1843 when General Sam Houston and representatives of the Republic of Texas met with members of 10 American Indian nations. They joined to negotiate a treaty of peace and friendship at Grape Vine Springs, also known as Tah-Wah-Karro Creek. It resulted in a document, the Treaty of Birds Fort (because, coincidentally, they met at nearby Birds Fort), which opened the area to homesteaders. I'm sure, in retrospect, the natives probably regret signing any such agreement. By 1859, Texas had removed all Native-American tribes from the state and most other tribes were in Reservations by 1892.

Within a year, the first settlers started arriving, rolling in on covered wagons, on the Grape Vine Prairie. The wild mustang grapes that were abundant there gave the area its name, Grapevine. Grapevine is the oldest settlement in Tarrant County (the largest City and County Seat in Tarrant County, Fort Worth, was established in 1849), originating under the Lone Star flag of the Republic of Texas in 1844, a year before Texas was annexed by the United States of America.

Although a now modern city with a great historic downtown, Grapevine has a more onerous history leading back to the days of the notorious Bonnie and Clyde. Always on the run, Bonnie and Clyde had parked their car by the side of Dove Road (now South Lake, Texas) on Easter Sunday 1934, maybe to catch some sleep, maybe to await a rendezvous with Bonnie's mom, who lived nearby. Their plans changed with the arrival of two curious motorcycle cops, State Troopers H.D. Murphy and Edward Wheeler, who were immediately shot dead, their pistols still in their holsters when they were found.

Sixty-two years later, a memorial to the two slain officers was erected on the spot. The slab pins the officers' deaths directly on the outlaw lovers, labeling them "infamous criminals." There is disagreement among historians as to whether Bonnie ever fired a shot here while others say that Clyde didn't either and that both patrolmen were possibly killed by another gang member in their car.  A month later, both Bonnie and Clyde were both killed in Louisiana.

Ok...I digress (a lot) so back to the cruise. Diane and I contacted Captain Dave for an anniversary sunset cruise in early May. Only problem was, May turned out to be the wettest month in North Texas in like forever. Thus a few cancellations later, we settled on June 14th, a warm but clear Monday.

Now, some of you may know, I'm a bit of a worst-case scenario kind of a guy so understand when I say that I went prepared. I had my water-proof bags for our phones and wallets, my three-way flashing 30,000 candle-power flashlight, distress flares and Google Map images of the lake and surrounding area. I was in want of a cutlass in case we encountered Pirates if they wished to board but could find none around the garage. All Diane was armed with was an eye-rolling sigh and mumbled her recurring mantra that she "should have asked more questions" before we married.

When we got there, as we boarded, I was intently seeking out life-preservers and the quickest and easiest path to the life boats. Back in the day, we actually had to show up to the Lifeboat drill wearing our life vests to show we knew how to put them on for the Titanic moment I knew someday would come. I had always been dismayed on my recent cruises where we no longer had to stand on the wind-swept deck by our assigned lifeboat, clad in our vests, lined up in the positions we would take to board.

When I inquired about the lifeboat drill, I'm accustomed to on my many past cruises, Captain Dave looked at me quizzically and said, "No sir.... we’re just a 50-foot sailboat. We have some life vests available and a raft, but hopefully we won't need them." He did mention in the safety brief that the ship had "tons" of preservers in various locations in case we needed them.

The captain’s ship, the Fourth Watch, is based on a Bristol 477 hull design with a whole bunch of upgrades that make the interior nautical but quite plush. The sailboat is 13 feet wide, 50 feet long and 70 feet tall from top of the mast to the bottom of the keel and displaces 50,000 lbs. A typical 477 may only weigh 36,000. Clearly the extensive use of heavy woods in and around the ship make the difference and adds to its stability. The boat was designed and built by Ted Hood in the 90s for a wealthy couple who wanted Ted to build them the ultimate sailing vessel to retire in where cost was not a factor.

We started out with a little tour of the Silver Lake Marina and an introductory history lesson about the boat and Capt. Dave's life on the high seas talking about the "A" list folks he's skippered for around the world. Then we boarded the beautifully appointed craft, a single mast surrounded by a weathered grey Teak deck. We stepped down from the pilot house to the main salon and were greeted by the green marble counters anchoring exotic wood walls and cabinets with a bedroom fore and aft. Twin diesels provide propulsion and generated power with a full (though really) compact kitchen) with a wine refrigerator and an icemaker that makes "Sonic Ice" (a proprietary form of ice cube by Sonic Restaurants, who knew?) and a freezer. We’re reminded that the ship is not only their "office" but also Captain Dave's and his partner Deana's home as well. Of course, what's a ship without a sea dog. There was Dobie on his bed monitoring the latest guests to his domicile.

We were seated in the main cabin and handed an amazing appetizer and cracked open a bottle of wine to start things off. The appetizer was an assortment of cheeses, marinated artichoke hearts, olives and a thinly sliced ham. Accompanied by some great scratch-made bread slices and the exquisite Danish whipped sweet cream butter that invaded all the nooks and crannies of the bread and literally melted in your mouth.

Capt. Dave

Dobie

Deana

We then moved on to the main course. When we made the reservation, we had five meals to choose from, I decided on the Chicken Rollatini, a chicken breast wrapped in baby spinach and mozzarella cheese swimming in a pink vodka sauce. Diane chose the Chicken Carciofi, chicken breast sautéed with Portabella mushrooms and artichoke hearts in a white wine and olive oil sauce on top of Rigatoni noodles.

 

Barely able to rise after all that food, we made our way topside to the bow and settled into our seats for our cruise around the lake. We were delayed when we first booked the cruise in that North Texas experienced an unusual Spring rainy season. All the runoff accumulated in our reservoirs and the seemingly constant rain closed down operations in many lakes, including Grapevine Lake. 

We finally got a date when the sky opened up but now, we were heading into Summer and temperatures were starting to rise. But what started out as a humid heat on shore dissipated once underway and with a gentle breeze across the lake brought the temperature down significantly.

The lake is quite expansive and soon the marina was well behind us as we were heading out into deeper water with other pleasure craft darting in and out as the sun slowly slipped from the sky above. As described, the Fourth Watch is heavier than most and even with the occasional meeting with a wake or two from passing boats, she remained stable and had very little rocking to speak of.

As we bobbed along, Capt. Dave brought forth a wonderous dessert. A miniature, delicately baked pie cup filled with French vanilla custard with blue berries, kiwi, a peach slice and a strawberry on top on a bed of sweet orange slices. Really sweet and refreshing. By now the sun was setting and the sky was turning a kind of pinkish-orange and it was time to head in. 

Back to the dock and the ending of a great experience and some quiet time away from the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle. There's something to be said about living life large and having the ability to set sail and disconnect from your everyday life. It does require a life style of the rich and famous but it’s good to know there are folks like Capt. Dave, Deana and, of course, Dobie to give us a taste of the high life without breaking the bank. Thanks, Dave, for the great ride!