Day 13

Monday, July 27, 2009

0605 - Up. Yawn! Shower. Get kids up. Load. Go to the house to drink some coffee.

0715 - Time for our good-bye pictures with Vacation Mouse and Betty Lou.

0722 - Leaving. There is lots of traffic on the ranch this morning. I met two cars on the road!

0752 - Fredericksburg. Gas, $2.34/gallon. Two men in a repair truck at the next pump notice my VA license plate and tell me they each have a son living in Virginia also.

0843 - Listening to the radio. The station advertises itself as "a mixed tape like you once gave a boyfriend or girlfriend but less cheesy". Hmm. Sounds interesting. I do love me a good love song.

0852 - Marble Falls, TX. Betty Lou called to tell me that there is free coffee today at McDonalds and there is severe weather forecasted for Dallas area and Oklahoma.

0935 - McDonalds in Lampasas. The drive-thru line is so backed up that people are waiting in the street and I can't even get into the parking lot. The kids are hungry (and so am I!) so I decide to change my route in hopes of finding another McD's sooner than if I stay on the back roads.

0955 - McD's in Copperas Cove. When I opted to wait and eat on the road I certainly didn't think I'd come so close to missing breakfast hours!

1025 - Done at McD's. Check the map to make sure I know where I'm going next.

1038 - Killeen, TX home of Ft Hood army base. I'm listening to the song about the Big Green Tractor and I just don't get it. Guess I'm city girl after all.

1101 - Temple, TX. Giant taco sauce packet on the Taco Bell billboard. Too bad Ryan didn't see it. We're back on I-35 and I had forgotton how busy this road is.

1130 -Okay it took us 4 hours to get back to Waco. I think that's about how long it took us to get down to the ranch from here last week.

1132 - Pass the Texas Ranger museum. Looks nice. Maybe we'll go there someday.

1151 - I have been listening to this weather forecast all morning and it's driving me crazy. "Highs today in the mid 90s. Lows tonight in the low 70s." That's it. Nothing else. No percentage of rain chances. No mention of cloudy vs. sunny. And what about the weather tomorrow? That is just not a weather report to me.

12:21 p.m. Hit the rest stop south of Waxahachie before we get into Dallas traffic. The kids get a snack from the snack box. It is cloudy now and the temperature has dropped from 93 to 84.

12:43 p.m. Starting to sprinkle and there are dark clouds ahead.

12:47 p.m. Raining. Because it's Dallas. And it always rains when we drive through Dallas. The rain missed us last week when we drove through so it's making up for it today. We usually don't backtrack on our trip. We pass along parts of the same route from year to year but don't retrace our steps on the same trip. So, a change of pace this year with a re-run of I-35.

1:20 p.m. See a sign for 75 North. Which makes me feel better. I knew that was the road I was looking for but was starting to doubt whether I knew which way to go through the Dallas highways to get there.

1:19 p.m. There are fancy new overpasses here. Cool-looking.

1:33 p.m. It is still raining and now the temperature is down to 72. And on the radio is a song singing, "let the rain come down".

1:35 p.m. Construction traffic jam. A pickup truck tried to cut across the grass to the service road to avoid the traffic and now it's stuck. Oops.

1:38 p.m. I see flashing lights up ahead.

1:52 p.m. Take advantage of the barely moving traffic to call Ron and ask him to reserve us a hotel.

2:01 p.m. Finally make it past the accident. So I guess it wasn't a construction jam but rather an accident jam that just happened to be in a construction zone.

2:08 p.m. Melissa, TX

2:13 p.m. Anna, TX. So do you think they were sisters? Did they have a rich dad to give them each their own town?

2:50 p.m. Stop for gas, $2.34/gallon, Sonic, and Arbys in Denison, TX. We're almost to the state line! Unfortunately it is starting to rain again. The kids start a movie. Ice Age, the Meltdown is playing.

3:26 p.m. Oklahoma!

4:44 p.m. McAlester, OK. Pass the Union Stockyards. So what is a stockyard, exactly? Apparently it is a place to hold animals temporarily while they are being sold. Which is kind of what I thought but now I know for sure.

5:o5 p.m. Lake Eufala. This lake is huge! We've been following and crossing several times.

5:33 p.m. Bathroom break. This should be our last stop before we make it to the hotel. Thought maybe I should get it done now before we get into Muscogee where there may be more traffic.

5:41 p.m. 3rd dead armadillo today. Poor things!

5:59 p.m. See sign for Muscogee castle. Hmm. Wonder what that is. Ahhh... the renaissance festival. And other activities. Oh and I see from their website that we can rent the castle too. That would be fun. Expensive. But fun.

6:08 p.m. Finally - dry road!

7:01 p.m. We're on Route 66!

7:03 p.m. There is an old closed Sonic for sale. Do you think it would fit into my suitcase?

7:07 p.m. Finally made it to the hotel. We are all happy to be out of the car.

In the room, the kids are watching Chicken Little until they get hungry. Ordered pizza from Pizza Hut down the street and we all went to pick it up. I ordered a small and cheesesticks so that we wouldn't have leftovers. Wow- that is a SMALL pizza! Hardly larger than a personal pan pizza and cut into 4 slices. I'm pretty sure there won't be any leftovers from that and I might not even get any!

Swimming then showers and postcard writing. Then time for bed. And blog updating. Because when we leave tomorrow, I will be without internet access until next Friday night.

So until then...

Some interesting tidbits about Vinita, OK where we are staying tonight:
Vinita is the second oldest town in Oklahoma and was founded in 1871 when the railroad came through. It was originally named Downingville but the name was changed to honor Vinnie Ream, the sculptress of the life-sized statue of Lincoln at the United States Capitol.