The 2006 Travels of Richard n Shirley

We went out for breakfast this morning. Just not the everyday type of you might expect at a "regular" restaurant. This place required our leaving at 7 am (they opened at 7 am) and making an hour's drive and be there by the 11 am closing time. We went to 60 miles to Kingsville, TX to the famous King Ranch.

The first pic is of the walk from the parking pasture, really a pasture too, down the road to find the place that the food was being served. This is the annual "Ranch Hand" breakfast.

The three tents is where the food is served. There was all you could eat scrambled eggs, home made biscuits, gravey, link sausage, orange juice and coffee. All prepared, except the OJ, on site by the cowhands. The food was very good and we had plenty of it.

We stood up at the table to eat. Its been a long time since I have stood to eat a meal. In the pic to the right is some of the people eating their breakfast. Once you are done, there is the roping exibition right next door, outdoor cooking from the chuck wagon, real weaving by a ranch hand and more than we could see.


The cowboys are all lined up to take their turn at calf roping. This is much the same as the rodeo shows but here it takes on a different atmosphere. We watched some of it but there was other things to see also. And we had a tour of the ranch at 10 and it was after 9.


We stopped and watched the cooks making cornbread with hot coals,




On the way out of the breakfast area is this corral with the cows. There were 3 of them and they had these long horns. Yep, more of those Texas Longhorns. There is a close up of one of them in our links. This is a real working ranch.

They have their cattle, and large farming, Cow development and horses. Lots of horses. They raise their quarter horses for working on the rance and for sale. Most of what I am presenting here we got from the hour long tour. The driver was a local college student working part time on the ranch.

On our tour we saw one of the out buildings that is not currently used as it was in the past. Many years ago, these buildings were used to house and feed the cowboys during the annual round up. This round up took 3-4 months and the cowboys were away from there families and this was their home away from home.

Here the cooks had a place to prepare the meals and the cowboys had a bed to sleep on, and etc. With the use of the motorized vehicle (pickups here) the guys can drive home for the night. Not shown is the "push" gates for entering and leaving areas without getting out of the truck.

Can you see it?, There in the grass just this side of the trees. Look closely and see if you can see the critter. He is looking you in the eyes.

Lots of the property is used for hunting leases. Per the driver, that is a 10,000 acre lease for something like $12.00 per acre. At this price, the lease holders are mostly big business.






How do you like the quality of the fence post? The camera was set on automatic and the focus was on the post not the cow beyond.

What you won't see is the ranch brand, "W". And on each of the cows is the year of its birth also branded under the "W". Just watch what you point at as it might be a surprise for what you get. Darn!

We had a good time, walked a lot and asked questions. Since I'm a city boy, ranching is way beyond my limited knowledge. There is more going on here than you can imagine. And lots of it is very technical and scientific.

We did go on to the Seaview RV Resort to find it, and directions to and from. The place is nice, lots of room between spaces and nearby fishing and, in Kingsville, golf. We meet Rudi of the Escapees club and chatted a bit. There will be more once we get moved on monday.