The Ship is Sinking and the Rodents Nervous

After a delightful social evening of Brazilian churrasco (barbeque) hosted by Eduardo and company, today dawned grey and rainy as a consequence of that trollop Tropical Storm Arlene loitering south of us.  This is a rainy movie we have seen several times before, and I have never liked how it ends.

We were summoned for a morning meeting to discuss some options in view of the unlikelihood of decent flying conditions returning until Sunday, at the earliest.  The options presented were that we decamp to the Luling tow site east of San Antonio some five hours distant; that we make a one day shift of operations 50 miles northeastward to Hebbronville in the hopes that their weather might clear before Zapata’s does, and, finally, that we sit tight in Zapata until such time as good weather returns (Or until hell freezes over, whichever comes first).  In the end, inertia prevailed and Davis, Mike, Gary and I will remain here.  BJ is heading home to Denver (after last night having driven a round trip of 320 miles to La Pryor to pick up the expensive Garmin Rino locator that he had left in his lz the other day), while Robin and Paulo will head to Luling to fly tomorrow.  Paulo needs to be in Dallas on Saturday and he is hoping to be able to fly a considerable part of that distance from Luling before driving the rest of he day.

Previous menus.

In the meantime, we are, once again, re-setting.  Some have gone north to savor the bounty of Laredo (Faye is enchanted by the opportunity to buy actual coffee beans) and procure stocks of intoxicating liquors, while David has been instructing Davis in the technicalities of text messaging.  Lunching at The Steak House we ordered from new, laminated menus that the owner has procured in response to David’s ceaseless needling about their tattered menus.  And afterwards we indulged in a nostalgic, rainy tour of Old Zapata as we knew it, visiting the site of Godkin’s restaurant, a now abandoned redneck barbecue joint that even in its heyday seemed much like a set from the Addams Family.  While the food was mediocre, and the service and décor worse, the place had the virtue of being different in a town where culinary conformity is a commercial virtue. 

Godkin's Real Pit BBQ and Fish Restaurant.

It’s going to be a long three days in the rain.