How we started the New Year in Brackettville and on Fort Clark Springs.

At 11:30 or so last night I went to where my husband's band was playing so I could give him a kiss at midnight. Thus began my New Year.

After ringing in the New Year with kisses and many hugs, I stayed to take a few pix. The gig was on Fort Clark Springs, a gated community across the highway from Brackettville.

Fort Clark Springs is a great place to live if you're on a fixed income. The cost of living is low, there's a par 9 that's free to the residents and an 18-hole with low rates, especially if you're a resident. There's a nice, big, spring-fed pool that stays at 72 degrees year round. Fort Clark Springs is an ideal place for retirement. As a result, parties on the Fort tend to wrap up pretty early. By the time I arrived there weren't so many people left, but they were dancing up a storm!

Above are the members of 32 Miles. From left to right: Hubby a.k.a. Wes (rhythm, lead guitar, backup vocals), Mike (bass guitar, backup vocals), Cindy (lead vocals), and David (percussion, backup vocals). Notice what looks like dust on David's cymbals? Nope, not dust. See below.

Above: I don't know what they do in other states but in Texas, if there's a dance, there's corn meal on the floor. Someone always shows up with a bag of cornmeal which gets spread around the dance floor before the dancing begins. I think it has something to do with making two-stepping easier. This particular building is the Post Theater. It's a historical building with terrible lighting, no room backstage for performers, and lots of rickety floorboards. You may remember me complaining about the lighting in this building when I blogged Alash Ensemble's Fort Clark performance.

Every song last night brought dancers to the floor and the better the beat, the more they stomped. STOMPED! That old floor shook so much that I kept having flashbacks to the few years I spent living in Bakersfield, California. Imagine all that vibrating wood with its coating of corn meal which the dancers had, by the time I arrived, pulverized into a fine powder. I didn't take a single photo with the flash that wasn't full of "orbs." If I were among those who believed that all orbs in photos were spirits, then I'd have sworn up and down that the Post Theater was full of ghosts last night.

At the bottom of this entry you can see the Texas Hill Country Reporter video clip of Fort Clark Springs.

Above: We enjoyed a New Year's Day dinner with hubby's family out on my mother in law's farm. Fried turkey, yea! Terrible photo, yes, but the guys had only pulled it out long enough to check it for doneness and it was a 13 pound lump of molten HEAT. No time to mess around with it to get a good shot. Fried turkey is pure deliciousness. The skin is crispity crunchity and the inside is moist and delectable. Once the turkey was done and set on the table, I was too hungry to care about photos. I've blogged my turkey frying tips HERE if you wanna know more.

Below: They lit a couple of little ground spinners in the shape paper tanks. We've been under drought conditions here for months and months. You have to be a real idiot to light any serious fireworks right now. So here's my one and only photo of fireworks since I began this blog. Pretty pathetic, eh?

Below: Behind the house the moon was setting. It was so beautiful, I don't get to see it set very often but out on the farm there is a relatively clear view to the west. When I saw that there was Earthshine on the moon I raced inside for my camera and tripod but only got one shot before that fantastic light on the moon's night side was no longer visible to us.

So that's how Wes and I started the New Year. 2009 has been good to us so far.