And now for something completely different…

Texas has a whorehouse in it. Well, maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. I truly have no idea. I’m sure there must be a chicken ranch or two, but I’m guessing they’re filled with poultry rather than scantily clad women being harassed by a religious zealot. Although, I’m not a hundred percent certain, which may be motivation enough to head stateside.

Why mess with Texas? That is where dear husband (DH) and I hooked up…well…sort of. We will celebrate thirty years together in March thanks to meeting in August of 1984 for a first reading of that risqué musical play and the crazy fun-filled performance that followed. In a city too large for my outport soul, I connected with like-minded people that fateful year. More importantly, I found my soul mate. Yep, soul mate. The fodder of romantic novels happens in real life, for there are no other words to succinctly explain our connection to one another.

Here we are three decades later, lucky enough to retire incredibly early and have choices. What to do? Canadians are snowbirds. It’s a long-standing tradition. For those of you not of this continent, snowbirds fly south, away from mounting snowbanks to the sandy shores of the southern states.



Don't we look like the perfect match?
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, 1984

We have continued to quote from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. It will have no meaning to anyone except us, but “...and your cottage on Padre Island” is our favourite line—for over a quarter of a century! (We won’t mention that we recently watched ourselves in a beta version—if you don’t understand that, perhaps you got lost in your blog hopping and will now recognize that you have drifted into the ancient past—and found out that the actual line is “...and your fishing lodge on Padre Island.” It seems we even synchronize our mistakes.)

Faced with our first winter of freedom, we thought of our beginnings and decided to bring it full circle. Texas. We’ve only been to the imaginary stage version of the state, so this is an exciting adventure. As for the existence of a real life Chicken Ranch? Stay tuned. We’ll let you know what we find out.

J