Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Day 23

Day 23 - Tuesday - July 13, 2010

0615 Alarm goes off. Hit the snooze.

0625 Alarm goes off. Have to get up even though I don't really want too.

Shower, pack and load. It is misty out this morning.

0700 Wake the kids up so they can get dressed and get over to the house for breakfast and I can finish packing and loading.

0730 Breakfast.

0838 Clearly I am not in a hurry to get going this morning since we were supposed to leave at 8:00. Go outside for pictures and get ready to hit the road.

0850 Oops - I'm lost. Took a wrong turn somewhere (Jo isn't turned on yet) and now I'm headed for the front gate, not the back gate.

0858 I think this is the wrong gate.

0903 And here we are again, at the same gate. So that means it must be the right gate (I asked Jo how to get out of here). Apparently the back gate is closer to the house than I thought.

0904 Deer crossing the road.

I take a few dead tree pictures as I head out. Not sure if any of them will turn out since it is so cloudy and gray this morning.

0933 Fredericksburg. Gas, $2.59/gallon

1000 Walmart to buy an iPod shuffle charger. For whatever reason, the shuffles refuse to charge on my computer. So we bought the cool plug charger that Dad had for his iPhone. Ron called while we were there. He's going to book us a room in Murfreesboro. As we pull out of the parking lot, Ryan has made himself a granola bar taco. (Betty sent the leftover crunchy taco shells with us as a snack so Ryan put a granola bar inside.) That kid eats the weirdest food sometimes.

1019 Buffalo in a field.

1041 Real live cowboys, on horseback, herding cattle.

1054 Stop at Starbucks in Marble Falls. I'll need caffeine to get me across the rest of Texas.

1115 Stop at the park in Burnet. The headphone splitter has gone missing. Luckily I find it fairly quickly. The park here has some ramps for skateboards, etc. Lots of kids using it today.

12:40 p.m. Arrive at Round Rock Donuts in Temple, TX. It is closed (as in out of business). I had a feeling that this wasn't the right place when I had Jo search for it but it was the only Round Rock Donuts listed in her database. Unfortunately I didn't write down the address when I looked it up online so had no idea where it should be. Turns out, this isn't it. Ryan is a little disappointed but I promise him a visit in the future. Luckily for us, Schlotsky's is right next to the open storefront and is open so we go there for lunch.

1:47 p.m. Texas Ranger Museum in Waco, TX. Our favorite parts:
Felisa - helping Bella find the scavenger hunt clues
Bella - dressing up in costume
Ryan - everything in the first gallery
Sheila - trying out the 5 pound revolver - it was heavy!

4:30 p.m. Jo took us around Dallas on the I20-I635 bypass. Much nicer than driving through downtown. Why haven't we gone this way before?

5:15 p.m. Rush hour (and construction) in Greenville, TX.

5:19 p.m. Jack in the Box for dinner.

5:33 p.m. Gas, $2.46/gallon

6:04 p.m. Construction has me stuck on the frontage road - hope I make it back to the highway soon!

7:22 p.m. Chicken truck - that's a new one. Usually it's cows and pigs headed to the butcher shop...

7:52 p.m. Nash, TN. Stop at Sonic for a snack. Turns out Sonicburgers are half-price on Tuesday nights. Woo hoo! Across the street is a scrapbook store, Scrapbookers Emporium. Too bad it's closed!

8:00 p.m. Texarkana still has construction on the highway. Will it be done by next year?

8:04 p.m. Arkansas - finally!

8:11 p.m. Kana called to talk to Bella.

8:19 p.m. Red River

8:24 p.m. Back to the tunnel of trees that surround every East coast highway. No more open fields where you can see for miles...

8:27 p.m. Jo says it's sunset. We still have one hour until we get to our hotel. Looks like we won't make it before dark.

8:30 p.m. Hope, AR. Clinton's birthplace.

8:34 p.m. FEMA temporary lodging storage. Acres and acres of white box shelters and RV trailers. Wow.

8:41 p.m. Historic Washington State Park - looks interesting. Put it on the list of future possibilities...

8:47 p.m. Ozan, AR. Population 81. Wow - that's a small town! That would be like all of the rising 5th graders in Ryan's class but no one else. Hmm... that could be a good book...

9:20 p.m. Arrive at the hotel. Queen of Diamonds Inn in Murfreesboro, AR.

9:40 p.m. All checked in and at the pool. The pool is very busy tonight (as is the hotel - all the parking spots are full).

The south in the summer is just miserably hot. It is about 80 degrees still and humid. Ick.

9:50 p.m. Killed a mosquito. I wonder how many have already bit me that I missed.

9:54 p.m. It is finally quiet at the pool - no one left but us.

9:58 p.m. Time's up!

Back to the room for showers and Disney channel while falling asleep.

No comments: