Texas Trip, Day 2

After spending a very hot night (our A/C didn’t work)  in a Comfort Inn in Lenexa, KS, we were up an at them even earlier this morning. But, because we ate the free breakfast in the hotel we still didn’t get on the road until shortly after  9 am.

Then our first stop was a gas station where Dave took a great photo. Unless we stop to buy a cord to download that picture, though, I can’t share it with you. In our hurry to get on the road we missed packing a few things. My minimalist self is wondering how much we really need them.

I love how quickly and kindly my new GPS accepts us not taking his recommended route. (We switched from the female voice to the male voice for more clarity and, apparently, the GPS became a “him” when we did.) He apparently did not want us to take the Kansas Turnpike so tried twice to send us an alternate route but when we got on I-35 south again anyway he adjusted one more time without announcing he was recalculating. This stretch of road has new asphalt and the traffic cones are still sitting alongside the pavement so he might have been tring to route us around construction work. There is a center line but no edge striping yet.

I do like the basic instructions for driving from Minneapolis, MN, to Austin, TX, though: get on I-35 south and drive about 1100 miles. You literally get on in Minneapolis and get off in Austin. With a few stops along the way, of course. So, if I decide to make the Texas Hill Country my winter destination I should never get lost on the commute. 🙂

We passed a kid’s play area that had a hay bale maze. It looked to me like the bales were tall enough that young kids would probably not be able to see over them but adults would. You could turn your kid loose to try to solve it but see to help them if they got frustrated. Great concept.

Once we actually got on the Turnpike at Emporia we understood our GPS’s intentions even more. There was fresh pavement there, too. Southbound was finished and northbound was almost done. So he was probably routing us around what still looks to him like construction. I wonder what will happen when we head back north again? In the meantime we should probably check to see what the setting is on the “avoid toll roads” option. For this trip, fast driving and multiple rest areas are more important than avoiding the $6 it will cost us at the end of this road.

My face hurts today. I don’t know if it’s my dust allergies from all the hours I am spending in this very dusty car, having spent the night in a strange bed, the air quality warning in KC, or the result of off-plan eating. Too many variables.

Which is something they warn you not do do on Day 31 of a Whole 30. Instead, they teach you how to reintroduce food groups one at a time so you can determine how YOU react to each group.

I know when I got off all dairy for three month years ago the first glass of milk after that gave me a massive headache. This is not that headache. This is a face ache. It’s all in my sinuses. Boy, is it!

We just passed two vehicles with license plates from Hawaii! Don’t see that often.

I think of Love’s as truck stops. We saw one today where the billboard called it a car stop. And they were right. I pity the poor truck driver not paying enough attention that tries to go there.

We’ve been very lucky with our arrival times in major metropolitan areas. We arrived in Oklahoma City apparently at the very beginning of their rush hour so we got through town without too much slow down. Tomorrow we should be going through Fort Worth at midday.

We are now at another Comfort in. We come here because I can sleep in their beds but we are not having a lot of luck otherwise. This time we checked into a room with a broken sofa. I wanted to sit with my feet up a while this evening so the broken sofa was not OK.  The woman at the front desk was nice but kept trying to move us to a more expensive room with the additional cost associated with that move. It’s their sofa that’s broken, not me. Finally she moved us into a room someone else had reserved and will put them in the one with the broken sofa. I hope they don’t mind. At least the A/C in this room works.

By the way, the guy did give us a $15 discount for the broken one last night. He wanted to know why we did’t call to report it. You tell me, if you walked into a room exhausted from a day’s travel in very high temperatures, kicked the A/C all the way down, and fell into bed, would you call the desk during the night to say, “It’s hot in here”? What are they going to do at that point? Send a repairman or move us to a different room in our sleepwear?

I am so glad it’s not hot in this room now. I plan to sleep better tonight. But, we still have to decide whether or not to go to Comfort Inn in Austin or to pick one of the other two more expensive chains that have beds I can sleep on. What would you do?

TTYL,

Linda