On New Year’s Day Chico and I drove along the Rio Grande, in the Big Bend, looking at Mexico.

And we stopped in Terlingua for the annual (Black-eyed) Pea Off.

There were a lot of dogs in attendance, and many of their people were drinking beer (it is, after all, Texas) and not paying so much attention to canine relations, so I decided that Chico should stay in the car until I was finished eating. Then I let him get out, and he ran around, played a little fetch and some tug, had a pee, made some new friends – some nice folks hanging out at their car instead of in the middle of the crowd – and we called it quits. Stop on a high note. Don’t take Chico any deeper into the crowd than the outermost trash can.