We are back on the road again, heading for parts unknown. Well, unknown to us. Hmm. That last part sounds kind of familiar. I’ve probably said that once or twice before. I’ll have to ask Dianne next time I see her.
It
still didn’t feel like a real “trip” trip, though until we passed good ol’ Sam
Houston statue in Huntsville. That’s
when I knew that we were really going … somewhere. And not long after the adventure portion of
this tale really began.
For
starters, we got behind a truck pulling a trailer with some interesting
markings on it. “Haulmark.” I snapped a picture of it and included it on
FaceBook as part of the unsolved mystery section. But my followers had some ready explanations. My brother said, “It’s headed for a happy
ending.” Aww. An Arlington friend queried, “Maybe it’s the
movie set.” But the answer of the day,
to be sure, came from a long-time friend who lives in Santa Fe now. Jim answered, “It’s the country widowed guy
that went to the big city to pick up the new workaholic city girl’s stuff now
that they’ve fallen in love.” Jim, I
hear the Hallmark Channel is hiring writers who truly understand their market
share …
We
stopped at Buc-ees in Madisonville. As crowded
as that place always is, we haven’t had good luck with our experiences there. This stop was, sadly, no different. Now, the bathrooms were clean, to be
sure. But the food? Chris chicken tortilla wrap was cold. My BLT had non-crispy bacon. Disappointing.
But
back to the the adventure side of the excursion …
When
we approached the booming metropolis of Fairfield, George, our new Google Siri
GPS guy (we changed to his voice after years of animosity between Chris and
the girl Siri voice) warned us to take a different route. Seems there was something happening up ahead
that caused our travel time to add fifteen minutes. Wait.
Make that 45 minutes. Wait. Now it’s two hours and 45 minutes. I have never seen that happen so quickly. I jumped into action and took over control of
the Google maps app. I quickly found the
apparent detour to which our headless friend had been referring. Chris made the exit seamlessly and we were
off on the scenic route through – no idea where. Fortunately, we were behind a very large 18-wheeler
that was doing the same thing. I offered
the sage advice to … “Follow that truck.”
Sur enough, he led us seamlessly
through the wandering countryside, until suddenly, Google George calmly
announced, “Turn right and merge onto I45.
Boom. And just like that we were
back on track. Very little time lost (Although
we weren’t on any kind of schedule, so that wasn’t a concern). Before long we were arriving in Arlington.
We
did have plenty of time before actually making our appearance at the Winkle’s
house. So we stopped at the AAA office
nearby. I had actually googled for one
back in Galveston, and other than one over near Katy and another somewhere in the
Woodlands, this one popped up as close to our house. Close, indeed. But they did have the paper maps we
wanted. Yep. Maps made from paper. The truly old school kind that unfold in such
a manner that you can never get them refolded in exactly the right way. Love ‘em.
Nothing quite like ‘em. Kind of
like reading an actual book instead of watching the movie version. Can’t wait to play with them on the road …
Speaking
of on the road, my two great desires for this trip? I always try to boil things down to just a
few so I can be guaranteed success at having a joyful trip. This time the desires are:
1)
See the cadillacs buried halfway in the dirt near Amarillo
2)
Touch the Great Salt Lake with my actual fingers
Anything
else will be gravy.
Matthew
6:34 says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry
about itself. Each day has enough
trouble of its own.”
Father,
thank you for our safe trip. Thank you
for our awesome hosts, the Winkles. Thank
you that Kel and his family made it to their stopping point as well. Please be with Jachin and his team as they
play in the tournament. Keep them (and
us!) warm. 39 degrees is NOT
baseball weather. Amen.
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