Saturday March 7, 2008

Today we spent our last Saturday in the valley. We stayed in for the morning, missing out on the "garage sale" in the park. Donna got up and bought a couple of pair of shoes at a bargain price but Stella and I stayed in. We had decided to go to eat Gonzales Burgers for lunch instead of eating breakfast. Gonzales Burgers are famous here in Donna because they are very large burgers that are prepared by some sisters that inherited the business from their mother. The location is in an old store that has been converted to a restaurant serving only burgers, fries and drinks. There is still one rack of items for sale, but I don't think anyone else even noticed it.

The burgers were very good and very very filling! I don't know why anyone would order the double meat and especially the double-double (double meat and cheese). I did order the fry mixture of french fries and onion rings. It's a little cheaper that way and we still got plenty of fries to go with our burgers.

To give you an idea of how busy this place is, we got there about ten 'til eleven-they open at eleven o'clock on Saturday-and still had to wait about an hour to get our food. This place sells hundreds of hamburgers daily and is only open from eleven AM 'til three PM.

From there we went back to the Don-West flea market. I had decided to buy a cap from one of the shops, but when we got there, not only did I buy a cap, Stella and I both bought some tee shirts. We also bought a fold-up table for the trailer. It is a very nice oak table that will go well in the living room for us to work on our computers. Now I need to finish it and seal the wood. Another project!

We then went to find a car museum that Ted and Donna knew about. They had seen it in the Knapp Chevrolet dealership, three years ago on another trip down here. They remembered that it was downtown on Tyler street. We drove the length of Tyler St. before we stopped to ask directions. The store clerk said they thought it was on Hwy. 83, but we programmed the dealership into the Garmin and followed it to where the dealership used to be located on business 83, that is now a plant and tree store. We went back out onto the highway and finally found the Chevrolet dealership, but it is now known as Gillman Chevrolet. Ted went inside and learned that the museum is owned by the former owner of Knapp Chevrolet and that he had moved it downtown. We finally found the location for the museum but soon learned that it was not open to the public yet. Ted found an open door and went inside and we met Mr. Cooley, the owner. He told us that he had owned Knapp Chevrolet and that when he sold the dealership, he had kept his car collection. He had a 1961, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1974 Corvettes and was working on a 1957 and 1961 Chevrolets that are being restored.

This man is quite a character and would be a wonderful storyteller if we could find the time to chat with him. He said he plans to have the museum open sometime in April. We will return next year.

We returned to the trailers and left for the "Chicken House Opry" in Mission. Donna had found this in one of the winter Texan magazines. They served a chipped beef barbecue sandwich before the opry performance. The entertainers acted as parking directors or whatever was needed before the performance started. The meal was so-so, but for $2.50 I guess you can't expect gourmet food served on china. The performers were also just so-so with some being pretty terrible. One of the "headliners, Pam Milsap, forgot her lines in a song she was singing and started another some in the wrong key with the band. We don't know if she is any kin to Ronny Milsap, hut it appears to me that she uses her last name to her advantage. Another "headliner" was Red Johnson. We were told that he has been elected to the Minnesota Country Music Hall of Fame but we have never heard of him or any of the songs he sang.

To me, the real bothersome thing is the chickens living on the property. They are next door to the opry behind a wooden fence, and are all roosters that are chained to their individual houses. The are obviously fighting chickens that someone is raising there. tom had told us that the owner of the place is out on bond for a felony charge, so I would guess its related to chicken fighting. We didn't care that he is out on bond, but its cruel to raise chickens this way for fighting.
I guess its the cop in me....

Until next,