Don't Mess With Texas!

Immediately after crossing the boarder into Texas there are signs posted along the highway with the Lone Star state's slogan: "Don't mess with Texas". And as if to drive that point home, there is the widest variety and greatest amount of road kill along the side of that highway I have EVER seen! Dogs, cats, deer, skunks, pigs, coyote, and possum were all lined up to welcome us. :-(
Poor things.

Relocating half way across the country is quite an undertaking. Raven hasn't lived there in at least 30 years, and I have absolutely no idea about how anything works or where anything is there. So, until we get all the how, what's, and where's sorted out about becoming Texans, Raven's family have made their lake house near Dallas available to us. It was an enormous gift, relief, and help to us. We will stay there through the holidays, or until we get our footing .... Which ever comes first.
The arrival plan was for me to go visit and rest with Quilla at Raven's sister's home with her family while he and his brother went to unload the truck at the local "Stash and Dash" (no, I'm not kidding). After they finished unloading what needed to go into our storage unit, they would go to the lake house to unload whatever things we would need for the next couple months, and then they would return the truck rental and meet up with us.
So, we drove through Texas for a day and a half, and after what has seemed like the week that would never end, we arrived at Raven's sister's family's home in Dallas where Quilla and I received a very warm welcome. We thoroughly enjoyed a long over due visit with Quilla's aunt, uncle and cousins. Raven's eldest niece has a daughter who is two years old, and Quilla fell in love with her immediately.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Or lake house as it were ...
Raven was receiving his own down-home Texas welcome.
After finally storing the last of our belongings at the Stash & Dash, he and his brother fumbled through the darkest of the night at 2am to deposit the rest of our belongings in the cabin. The GPS took them to boat ramp by mistake, so they had to back the 26 ft moving truck down an alternate dirt road to get back on track. This must've caused a bit of a disturbance in the sleepy little gated community because the next thing you know a man was walking towards them through the dark yelling "don't come any closer!" .... With a gun!

He then fired a warning shot into the ground just to make sure they knew he meant business. Raven tried to explain that they were looking for his family's cabin, but the slurring man looked skeptical. Clearly though, he wasn't worried because then his "back up" jumped out from behind the bushes in full on camouflage with an AR14 semiautomatic! He let the startled brothers know that he was the head of the POA (property owners association) here in these parts, and that his family owns most of this land. After some brutal verbal interrogation, the two community watch dogs finally let Raven and his brother approach the house. In order to maintain that Raven and his brother were who they said they were and that they had no criminal intent, they watched over Raven's shoulder as he punched in the security code on the lock that would allow them to retrieve the key to enter the house. Realizing that they had barked up the wrong tree, they lowered their weapons and mumbled an apology, but could be heard in the bushes where they probably were spying with night vision goggles for the next hour.
How's that for a nice "howdy-ya-do"!
The next day when Quilla and I arrived at the lake house with Raven, things were much more quiet. The only greeting of any kind we had was an enormous black bug that flew by as I rocked Quilla on the porch swing outside. She pointed at it and said "bird".
yup! Pfffff! DO NOT MESS WITH TEXAS!