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Here’s another reason we like Comfort Inn: outlets. Lots of them. Fairly accessible. Each night we plug in two computers, one iPad, and two cell phones. It’s nice to not have to crawl behind furniture to be able to do that. Comfort Inn rooms have desks, too. With real office chairs. And the lamp on the desk at most of them has at least one outlet right in its base so it’s easy to plug in your computer and go right to work.

I’ve been playing with some more features of our GPS. Today we are experimenting with listing multiple potential stops. I want to know what happens when you don’t stop as well as what happens when you do.

I decided to start by entering rest areas. In the POI section under the trucking information I found a list of rest areas. This list basically starts with your current location and goes out from there in all directions. So you need to have an idea of what direction your road heads. For us today, that is north. So I just scrolled through the list and selected each stop that said it was north of me.

Next I went to the truck stop section to select fuel stops. We like Flying J and there were some of those on our route so I selected a couple.

Then I entered the motel we are shooting for today. I already had an address for it so I entered it directly. You start with the state. If you will be stopping in the current state you don’t have to do anything. If not, you enter the first few letters until it brings up a list. I only had to enter “Mi” and it gave me a list to choose from and I selected Missouri. The city then works the same way. Then you enter the “house” number and touch “done.” Then the street works like state and city.

Unfortunately, it puts all that on the list in the order you entered it. But each entry has an arrow you touch and drag to move it to the correct position. Touch “go” and you are ready to head on down the road. Unless you are sitting inside a building where there are no satellite views. Then the GPS will give you the choice of previewing the route. So you can do a dry run to get familiar with what will be coming up when you do move. Another nice feature.

For future reference, when I will be carrying my own facilities, I noted the GPS did not have parking only rest areas. I wonder if they are named something else on it? Have to look further into that.

But, I did get an anwer as to what happens if you don’t stop at an intermediate place on your route. A rest area we planned to stop at was closed so we couldn’t stop there. That meant the GPS thought we just missed our turn. It tried to get us to turn back at the next  four exits before I got tired of listening to that and started a new route instead. Maybe next time, we’ll pull off on the shoulder and stop to see if that is enough to make it happy again.

And when you do stop? It directed us right to the Flying J then promptly asked us to “Proceed to the highlighted route.” Which we did only after getting fuel first. So that part worked fine.

We just passed by a town whose name I didn’t catch. They are advertising their growth. But, I’m a little concerned about their city planning. What I saw was a cul-de-sac with a telephone pole in it. Not centered in it, either. Mentally draw lines bisecting the circle both north/south and east/west. Now follow that east/west line about halfway between the north/south line and the outer edge. Plant the telephone pole there. Now drive your semi-truck around the circle to go back the way you came. Challenging? You betcha! 🙂

We’re approaching Emporia, Kansas. There are two logical routes from there through Kansas City. One, first pick of both our GPS and Google Maps, is to stay on the Kansas Turnpike to Tulsa then turn east and take the outer loop around KC. The second is to exit the Turnpike to stay on I-35 and go right through downtown KC. According to Google Maps, the difference between the two routes is three miles. The shorter path takes three minutes longer. Since today is Sunday there is no reason to avoid downtown. But, there is always a reason to avoid paying extraneous tolls. So we’ll stay on I-35 and see how far we have to go before our GPS quits telling us to turn around.

It did well. By the time we paid the toll, and we had exact the exact amount out and ready,  it had already changed to match our chosen route. Way to go GPS!

If you ever find yourself in Kearney, Missouri, just north of Kansas City, anywhere near meal time be sure to go to the Stables Grill on the southwest corner of exit 26 off I-35. We ate there this evening and it was wonderful! I wasn’t particularly hungry going in but I ate all my Chicken Marsala and vegetable medley, about 1/2 the big pile of mashed potatoes and somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of Dave’s carrot cake. His club sandwich was huge and he ordered potato salad to go with it. All that for about $25. One of the staff told us the carrot cake is made from scratch by the head chef’s mother and I believe it. And I believe this small town cafe has a chef not a cook. And I love that the dining room is smoke free but the “tavern” isn’t. Since you go in the main door then turn one way or the other to go through doors into totally separate areas there is no spill-over air pollution. When you go, you’ll thank me.

TTYL,

Linda

 

After a quick stop at Sportsmobile to ask three more questions, we headed north again. I am not happy that my butt remembers this seat but it is good to be headed out of this heat. I have not been watching the weather at home because I didn’t want to know how pleasant it might be.

Back to the topic of GPS. Not having had one before, I don’t know what is standard so this may be old stuff to some of you but one of the things I like is that it helps us anticipate a little. For instance, if we will be turning onto a multi-lane road then turning left it will say, “Turn right on X then keep left.” Knowing that we are to keep left means we wait for a larger hole in the traffic before making the turn so we can get across how ever many lanes there are.

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Apparently, it is going to be a very long drive home. I am so

B O R E D !

Wish I could read/write more than a few sentences at a time without getting sick.

If this is going to become a regular route for me during snowbird season I am going to make it a point to stop at some of these towns along the way to visit their sights. Many towns have signs touting their attractions which could help change up the trip by stopping at different towns each time. Can’t do that this trip though, need to be back for a doctor appointment. Plus don’t want to spend more money on restaurants and motels. This trip is costing enough as it is.

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Another Comfort Inn tonight. Nothing broken or missing from the room. What happened? Apparently Moore, Oklahoma, should be a regular stop. It’s even cheaper than some of the other Comfort Inns we’ve stayed at this trip. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Guess I got cynical about this chain. Have to watch that. Especially since the free internet at this one comes up quickly without making me sign in at all let alone the three times I sometimes had to try at the last one. All that makes heading home even better.

Also better is that the temperatures are dropping as we head north. We no longer instantly melt when we open the car doors at a food or gas stop.

We make make it home still sane after all.

TTYL,

Linda

Well, folks, we are in Texas in August. For those of us used to turning on the faucet and waiting for the water to get cold I have news, you can wait all day but you’re never going to get less than tepid. Why is it places down here have water heaters but not water coolers?

But, I am sleeping wonderfully well. Yay! Maybe there is something to this ” early to bed” bit? It can’t be physical tiredness can it? Although when traveling the walks to meals and bathrooms do tend to be a bit longer than at home, it’s not like I’ve been doing any hiking or anything. Could this still be a side effect of eating clean before the trip? They do say eating that way will improve your sleep. But, we sure haven’t been making the best food choices all along they way.

That all for this news report. Now back to our regularly scheduled day.

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Eating clean can be a much bigger challenge than you would think. One of the rules during the Whole 30 is no sweeteners of any type. That’s why reading ingredients of prepared foods is so important. But who would think of salt as a prepared food? Just imagine our surprise this morning when Dave read the salt packet in the breakfast room. It said, “salt, sodium silicoaluminate, calcium sulfate, dextrose, potassium iodide.” Did you see it? “dextrose”. Those of you familiar with the -ose words will recognize that as sugar. There is sugar in the salt!

We spent about 3 1/2 hours at Sportsmobile asking and answering questions. Do you know that saying about not knowing what you don’t know? Even after all our years full-timing we learned more things today. We are now much more confident that the things we finally ordered are the right things. We learned a lot about what would and wouldn’t work and why. And we taught them a couple things they didn’t know. Paul even took pictures of my Travel Scoot.

Had to laugh at our GPS today. When teaching it to read, it was obvious that “St.” would be read street, right? Until we turned onto St. John St. which our GPS announced as “street John street.” 😀

So, now we are back in the motel with a bit of afternoon and all evening to try to catch up on all the computer stuff that has been accumulating the last four days. May not be able to do it, though, since I’ve pretty much used up all my brain cells on Sportsmobile and travel challenges. It might be nap time. We’ll see.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. to Bruce. I hope you forgive us for not being home today. Have fun at John’s tonight.

I woke up early this morning so had time to shower before the breakfast room closed. We like to take advantage of the breakfast since we feel like we pay a lot for the privilege of spending a few hours in their motel. We’ve been eating scrambled eggs every morning with various sides depending on that day’s offerings.

Once in the car and on the road, our GPS instructed us to, “continue 147 miles south on I-35.” Like I said before, hard to get lost on this trip. Unfortunately, that is not the end of this trip. That is just the next GPS information point: probably where I-35 splits into east and west again depending on whether you are going to Dallas or Fort Worth. We’ll be taking the Fort Worth leg.

I saw a license plate that read “367 WPM” and I thought, “Wow, that’s fast!” Well, I don’t know anyone who can write 367 words per minute; do you?

We went to Applebee’s for lunch because our daughter went to one in Spokane recently and raved about the dish she had. It wasn’t on the menu so I asked the server about it. He said it was on a specials menu so he could ask to have it made for me but he wasn’t getting good reviews about it. Rather than take a chance on staff here messing it up I decided to order something off the regular menu and wait for a better time and place to try the new one. That’s in line with my “never deliberately irritate the person fixing or serving your food” policy.

I’m so happy to finally see Austin showing up on the “distance to…” signs.  I am so ready to be there now.

What would you do to sleep in a comfortable bed while traveling? We decided to give Comfort Inn another chance. The pool is closed indefinitely. The pull rod is off one of the curtains. The toilet swivels; not just the seat, the whole thing. But, if all goes well to morrow we won’t have time to swim. We can still close the curtains. And the toilet doesn’t move while using it nor does it leak. Apparently, I am willing to put up with all that for a bed in which I can sleep. Plus this room has a table with two chairs in addition to a desk and sofa so we can bring food here to eat. And we have a frig and microwave for any leftovers. So, if we have to stay all weekend we can live here pretty comfortably. Since the A/C does work.

TTYL,

Linda

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