The Joys of West Texas

Well it's been a couple of days since my last post and boy, has it been a couple of days. Since I last wrote, the group had just been to two Diamondback games at Chase Field and were about to hit the road for Houston.

If you're not familiar with the Tucson to Houston route, it's a long drive, over 18 hours with two time changes. Obviously we didn't try to tackle the entire route in one day, deciding to reach San Antonio the first day (15 or so hours) and then tackle the final three or four to Houston the following day.

We left Tucson around 7 AM. The drive started off well. Clear blue skies, good weather, not too hot, and not too humid. Once we were a little ways into Texas, Dr. Bob had me drive for a couple of hours. Since I've been focused on perspective during this trip, sitting in the driver seat was without a doubt a new perspective. West Texas spread out before me, a beautiful, dry landscape. It was very windy which made driving the van a unique experience, but I did it and Dr. Bob got to take a little nap.

As we got further into the drive, tensions began to rise and patience levels dropped. Don't get me wrong, all the people I'm traveling with are great, but being stuck in a van with them for long lengths of time can get trying. We hadn't done this long of a drive in a while so we were still trying to get back into the swing of things. With two time changes, we lost two hours and suddenly it was no longer 3 PM but 5 PM.

With the hopes of a quick dinner so we could get back on the road, we pulled off to a Sonic around 9 PM or so (this allowed Dr. Bob as much daylight driving as possible). Unfortunately, the Sonic wasn't too fast and the mosquitoes were nasty in the Texas humidity. Once we finished dinner, it was back on the road, knowing we wouldn't reach San Antonio until midnight or so. About an hour or so from our hotel, we ran into an accident. We think a truck trailer caught on fire and they blocked off the road. Our van sat in standstill traffic for about two hours and forty five minutes while the local fire department took care of the fire and removed it from the road. This was not part of the plan and to past the time, we either went to sleep, wander around the immediate vicinity of the van, or looked out at the traffic.

We finally checked into our hotel around 3 AM. The group was beat and I think those beds were the comfiest beds we had ever slept in.

Well, there's more to the story, but the van is loading up and hitting the road. Once we get to Arlington, I'll post again!