Big Update Part 2

Woo-hoo! The mother-in-law now has wireless internet in her house. No more Starbucks, public library, or going out in the back yard to steal the neighbor's unencrypted signal!

Okay, from the comfort of the dining room table, I continue the update...

Wednesday, June 30: Our nothing-but-Texas day. We left Van Horn after grabbing a quick breakfast at McDonald's (not many choices in Van Horn, and we wanted to get on the road quickly).

430 miles to San Antonio, with very little along the way. This was the most boring part of the whole trip. The only highlight was a mountain that looked like a breast, complete with nipple. Cristina took a picture of it:


We made it to San Antonio in time for a matinee movie (I told Cristina I'd take her to see Eclipse). After eating a large popcorn during the movie, we weren't quite in the mood to eat, but I grabbed a few sandwiches to-go from Chick-fil-A just in case.

We got to our KOA cabin in Columbus, Texas late, after 11 pm. The cabin was unusual. It was made of aluminum and had a bathroom, fridge, microwave, and TV. Also, the cabin had a standard queen bed instead of the usual full + bunk beds with vinyl mattresses that we expected. It was strange. It didn't feel like a KOA cabin. I hope all the KOAs aren't going that route, because this cabin definitely lacked some of the charm of the others.


Thursday, July 1: We asked the campground owners about a good place for breakfast, and they recommended Schobel’s. We got there a little after 11 am and missed the breakfast buffet. We opted for the lunch buffet, even though it felt a little strange to eat grilled chicken and mashed potatoes for our first meal of the day. Tasty though. The sweet potatoes were too candied for our preference though. Good pecan pie.


Along the trip, our biggest concern was not getting into a spot with the trucks where we’d need to back up. My truck towed our van on a car carrier, which is a platform that the entire van sits on. I can reverse with that, but Cristina pulled the Subaru on a tow dolly, where the back wheels of the car are touching the ground. You can’t reverse with a car on a dolly. And I preferred to avoid backing up anyway. I’m no good at backing up with a trailer, and even worse so when driving a 26-foot truck. We got good at finding large parking lots where we could pull our trucks side-by-side, parked in such a way that we could pull forward to get out. Even though we had no kids with us, we still had to stop frequently, since the trucks drank gas like crazy. So we were constantly scoping out places that had good pull-throughs for long trucks.

We had a lot of rain on this day, which slowed us down some. We were already traveling slower than usual due to the heavy trucks, but more so in rain. I noticed quite a difference in the descent of my gas gauge needle when I went 55-60 rather than 65-70. Technically we weren’t supposed to exceed 55 with the trailers, but we occasionally broke that rule, I must admit.


After San Antonio, the terrain became a lot more green. We made it to Louisiana and stopped at a Target in Lake Charles to buy a couple of CDs. Both trucks had CD players, but mine didn’t work (I didn’t know it until after we’d bought the CDs). So I was stuck with radio. Cristina’s truck also had an auxiliary jack, so she could listen to the iPod. At one point I listened to music on my laptop with headphones, but it was too cumbersome, so I gave it up.

We made it to our hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi close to midnight. We had booked the Scottish Inn on Expedia, and I was expecting a typical $50 dump, but it was really nice and seemed new. Not quite as good as the Country Inn in Tucson, but almost. Breakfast was served at 3:30 for all the oil workers who had to leave early, but we opted to sleep in.

Friday, July 2: I wanted a real breakfast instead of hotel donuts and juice, so we went to Denny’s and pigged out on eggs and grits, coffee and pancakes. The Latin guys in the booth beside us were watching the Netherlands-Brasil game on a smart phone, and I kept looking over my shoulder to check on the game. They didn’t seem to mind. Brasil lost, which was a great way to start the day.

Our last driving day. It was going to be a long one.

This part of the trip almost seems to go faster, because there isn’t as much distance between the bigger cities. Texas is so spread out, but once you get to Mississippi, the cities and states come a lot quicker.

We hit our target of getting to Tallahassee around dinner time and met up with Uncle John and Aunt Kathy for dinner at Applebee’s. It was nice to see them and catch up. They advised us to park our trucks in a bank parking lot and then we rode with them to the restaurant. It felt good to just be a passenger, and nice to be sitting beside Cristina, even for just a short ride.

One of the best parts of the whole trip was that Cristina and I stayed in a great mood. When I think back on the trip, my memories are that it was fun and pleasant, like an adventure. That’s the best kind of travel, no matter what happens along the way.

We pulled into Gainesville about 10:30. I briefly talked to Aaron on the phone and gave him the address for the storage unit. He gave me the name and number of an LDS person based in that area to help with unloading.

Saturday, July 3: Burt and Tyler arrived around 9 and helped Elena and me get the motorcycle out of the back of the big truck. We got to the storage units around 10 am, when the office opened. Aaron’s LDS reinforcements were there to help.

It took about 2 hours to get both trucks unloaded into 3 storage units. Our new LDS friends headed home, as did Burt and Tyler. Back at Jarue’s, we showered and then drove around to look at houses for rent. A former student of mine, Jamar, had sent me some links to rental houses on Craigslist. We drove through neighborhoods, occasionally stopping to “borrow” unencrypted wireless internet. In this way, we looked for houses online while driving around. One of the houses Jamar had sent us sounded good so I called and set up a time to look at it.

After dinner, we went to Starbucks to use their wi-fi. We stayed until they closed at 11, but Cristina barely made it through the hundreds of emails in her inbox. We didn’t have the charger for her laptop so she used the Mac and I read the newspaper.