The Hills travel to Montana to visit Peggy's mother. There, they find out the family is losing the ranch to Henry Winkler (guest starring as himself) because of high property taxes.
When an elderly stranger, Ms. Wakefield (Marion Ross), visits the Hill residence during Christmas, Hank is thrilled to show her his house since it was also her childhood home. However, when Ms. Wakefield announces that she wants to die in their house, Hank and Peggy become shocked and get angry when all the neighbors insist that the Hills grant Ms. Wakefield her last wish.
Cotton inherits $10,000 from the will of his friend Topsy, and goes to Mexico, with Bill in tow, to buy a timeshare. Feeling lonely after the death of his friend, Cotton gets suckered in by tales of the timeshare development's owner, O'Kelly, and decides to buy—even though Americans cannot own land in Mexico. Meanwhile during a heatwave in Arlen, Peggy, Bobby, and Dale search for a pool to swim in.
Peggy is jealous that Hank always gets complimented on his yard, so she starts a garden in the front yard. When that plan fails, she puts Winklebottom the garden gnome in their front yard, which drives Hank insane. When Bobby accidentally breaks off Winklebottom's ear, Hank promises to fix it but secretly destroys it instead. However, when Peggy blames Bobby for Winklebottom disappearing, Hank feels guilty and replaces Winklebottom with a new gnome. Guest Stars: Beth Grant as the old lady in the gnome store
When Dale reads Joseph the Warren Commission Report, he notices the absence of a discrepancy in the positioning of the local landmarks, decides that the U.S. government must be right about who assassinated John F. Kennedy (and thus, their official version of every story he had previously written off as part of some conspiracy is in fact completely factual) and goes from government-hating conspiracy theorist to government-loving super-patriot. Meanwhile, Hank discovers a mistake on his driver's license and is sent through a boatload of red tape in order to fix it—a task made all the more onerous when Dale reports Hank as a threat to America's national security, though Dale also provides the key to resolving the problem.
When Hank agrees to take in a soldier's pet, he gets stuck with a vicious aging beast of a cat named Duke. Hank takes Duke to visit Dr. Leslie (Jason Bateman), a veterinarian who runs a battery of tests and presents Hank with a vacation-ruining bill for several thousand dollars. Hank has to find a way to cut off Dr. Leslie and a tip from a nicer veterinarian allows him to do so.
Hank's co-worker Enrique (Danny Trejo) is having marital problems and starts spending all his time with Hank, who only makes things worse when he tries to fix Enrique's marriage. Meanwhile, Bobby tries to unblock the Fox network from the Hills' TV in order to watch the Daytona 500, in which he succeeds, only to block it again when he discovers the show is not what he expected.
When Hank forgets to mail his insurance payment, Hank and Bobby must protect themselves from any accidents until their insurance can be re-activated in 36 hours. Meanwhile, Dale decides to raise bees, Bill and Boomhauer discover the joys of deep-frying, and Peggy and Luanne get stuck at a rest stop when Hank asks them not to drive uninsured.
When the Tom Landry Middle School football team has to forfeit a game due to poor field maintenance when the caretaker goes senile, the booster club resolves to replace the school's elderly groundskeeper, Smitty (Christopher Lloyd), and Hank resolves to help him keep his job by secretly doing upkeep on the field. Meanwhile, Luanne starts dating a redneck named Lucky (Tom Petty) (first seen in "The Redneck on Rainey Street"), much to Peggy's dismay.
To pay off her credit card debts, Luanne signs up to be a roller derby girl. Peggy gets in on it too and uses borrowed money to make improvements on the team, sinking both Luanne and Peggy deeper into debt. Meanwhile, Lucky (Tom Petty) comes up with a plan to have Bobby eat a potato chip off the assembly line. Other Guest Stars: Glenn Morshower as Lance and Neil Flynn as the Derby Representative
Hank is in charge of organizing the Strickland Family Fun Day. Meanwhile, John Redcorn and his band "Big Mountain Fudgecake" are having trouble finding a venue to play their music. Acting on Hank's advice, John Redcorn uses his land to open a casino so his band can have a place to play.
When Arlen bans smoking in all restaurants and bars, Dale becomes the rebellious "Smoking Bandit" to impress Joseph. Meanwhile, Peggy decides to tail the "Bandit" and unmask him.
Note: Originally, the episode "Bill's House"[16] was meant to air before being switched with this episode a few days later.[17] This results in an error in continuity since Peggy is seen working at the Arlen Bystander in this episode, even though she doesn't start until the Season 10 episode "Bystand Me" (8ABE21).
When Channel 84 hires a new meteorologist, Irv Bennett (Brendan Fraser), Nancy and her less-than-accurate weather reports are left out in the cold -- and the only way back to being hot is for Nancy to cover news of a forest fire. Meanwhile, Bobby tries to fight back against a bully who springs out and scares his victims.
Upset with Bobby's habit of giving up what he starts (after Bobby does not complete the miles needed to run for a charity race), Hank puts Bobby on the school's track team but soon learns that the coach only wants Bobby as a "Stick" so he can push the other team members to do better.
Bill joins an all-male chorus (based on a real Dallas-based men's chorus called The Vocal Majority) who end up using Bill and forcing him to blow off his appointment to cut the general's hair at the Army base. Meanwhile, Peggy and Bobby get caught up in a game of Pong after Peggy finds her old Atari console in the closet.
