Vignettes from the Road (Part VII)

***************Updated 11:05 pm*************
Today – we go home. Traveling is nice, but after a while we’re REALLY ready for our own beds and bathrooms. Today is that day.

Left Dad about 6am after having been woken up by a phone call from Nurse- finders. I had comple- tely forgotten I was scheduled to work today! Fortunately, they were calling me off (which likely means they’ll call me off again tomorrow, too.)

Well, I had a LOT on my mind. A wake-up call in more ways than one.

Kelly and her daughter Alicia came over to see Dad last night. Like us, they were pretty startled to see how bad he’d become so fast. So Julian got to meet his other cousins on the Long side, and we traded phone numbers and e-mail addresses and promised to do this again soon – like, BEFORE any funerals.

We hit the ground running and took Iowa 2 across to I-35, then I-35 south. We stopped to get these pictures:

If you squint REALLY HARD, you can see a llama over Julian’s right shoulder. No, really!

7:30 am: Here he is at the Iowa/Missouri Border. Thrilling. We ran across four lanes of Interstate to get these photos. (Fortunately two lanes were under construction, so it wasn’t quite as dangerous as it sounds.) And the Missouri State Trooper was very understanding, if not humorless . . . .


10:30 am: Kansas. There were no fancy- schmancy signs welcoming us to the great state of Kansas; otherwise we’d have stopped and risked life and limb to get a photo again. We DID get this neat picture of Julian driving through the gorgeous wheat fields of Kansas (that’s the shadow of his fingers on the steering wheel at right . . . )


2:00 pm: Here’s the Oklahoma Border. It’s not “just” a sign; it’s a 10 foot by 40 foot pink marble engraved monument! Oklahoma has a LOT of style. It’s looking more and more like we’re actually going to get home to San Antone by midnight local time, which means I’ll be working tomorrow. (Yay!!!) So far we’ve done excellently with our budget, so I’ve promised Julian the biggest, fattest steak we can find when we get to Texas – which, believe me, is one big honkin’ steak.


6:05 pm: Closing in on the Texas Border. I'm scheduled to work in the morning. We gotta get moving here. The one thing I learned on this trip: All Days Inns have free (i.e., non-passworded) wireless Internet. After the horror story in Waynesville, I don't feel one bit guilty.

We ate at a place called "Pizza Hut Italian Bistro" somewhere north of the Kansas / Oklahoma line. It was outfitted a lot better than your standard Pizza Hut, and a lot of the same fare (although the Salad Bar suffered in the conversion -- that's a mistake) with some very nice pasta additions. Julian had the Penne pasta dish while I stuck with the familiar Caesar Salad and wings. WARNING: Pizza Hut's "Mild" wings are a LOT hotter than mot places "Hot" Wings.

7:30 pm: Texas Border. Julian wanted to take a picture, but traffic was rough and the shoulders get weird here in Texas. Plus both of us just want to get the hell home at this point.

11:05 pm: Oh, look! There's Waco! (And I gotta work in the morning.) I'm seriously wondering if I'm EVER going to get home.

~~JD~~