Day 7

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

0651 – Alarm goes off. Oops! Looks like I forgot to reset my alarm for a later time when I decided to sleep in today.

0725 – Time to get up.

0820 – Ron is online. The kids get to talk to him. His hotel room looks a lot like our hotel room!

0858 – Take the luggage to the car. Ugh – it’s humid today. So much for fixing my hair! Go back inside for a quick breakfast.

0914 – Leaving the hotel.

0934 – Pass a building that looks like a caterpillar. Monolithic Domes.

1022 – Stopped by a train in Waco. Ryan counted the cars – 11. That’s a pretty short train!

1023 – Arrive at the Dr Pepper museum. Lots of interesting tidbits about Dr Pepper over the years. We bought some glass bottles to bring home and got a fresh one from the Soda Fountain. Everyone tried it – even Bella! Ryan and I were the only ones that really liked it. When we first pulled up, the kids didn’t believe me that I like Dr Pepper and have been drinking it since high school. Just because Ron always drinks Coke and I don’t drink a lot of sodas at home. Who knew I was keeping my soft drink history such a secret!

12:20 p.m. Stop at Jack in the Box for lunch. Another bad experience. The service was very slow and just before we left, we saw a giant cockroach crawling across the floor. I think it had touched my toes. I felt something tickly and thought it was just a fly buzzing around. When I finally looked down, the nasty cockroach was about 3 inches from my foot. YUCK!!!!! I’m not sure why I still like Jack in the Box so much and why I keep going back. I always have a mediocre to bad experience there but like the food. Especially the heart attack in a box, Bacon Cheddar Potato Wedges.

1:25 p.m. Okay, I have just seen the 4th sign today with an actual truck or car hanging high above the roadway on the sign. The first one was a semi tractor. At first it didn’t look real because there was nothing around it to offer perspective. But when we passed it, it was definitely the real thing up there!

1:41 p.m. Stop for gas. Forgot to stop while at lunch in Waco and when we exited from the interstate, there wasn’t anything around. I was starting to get a bit nervous! The GPS is taking me a different way to the ranch so I’m playing along out of curiosity. I feel better now that I have a full tank of gas to go with all the cactus I am seeing! $2.29/gallon.

2:30 p.m. Marble Falls. Ryan just tried out his new audiobook CDs I had burned before we left and none of them are working. I knew my CD burner was having trouble but I didn’t realize it wasn’t working at all. What a waste of time that was! He is disappointed and I feel bad.

3:07 p.m. Pass by Wildflower Hills. I had planned to stop here today but the girls are asleep. It is close enough to the ranch that we could maybe come back later in the week.

3:09 p.m. See two camels in someone’s yard. Felisa will be sad she missed them.

3:17 p.m. Stop for a snack at Sonic in Fredericksburg.

4:02 p.m. We made it to the ranch! Yea!

We go to the pool for the weenie roast but it’s the wrong week. So we swim anyway then go back home to eat hot dogs for dinner. The kids got to ride in the back of the mule which they thought was a lot of fun. Then playtime while I tried to get online. No luck with the wireless. I can get on with my laptop if I plug in with the modem cord in the office in the barn. So guess I’ll be checking in once or twice a day while we’re here. Where’s my technical guy when I need him? Oh yeah – he’s in California. The kids and I had to tag team the satellite box since the remote wouldn’t work unless I was across the garage bay in the office (and the tv is in the guest room!) but we got the Disney channel on for one show before bed.