Well, that day has come.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to head back on up north again.\u00a0 This means my vacation is almost over.\u00a0 How can that be?\u00a0 Didn\u2019t I just leave?<\/p>\n
As is my usual habit now, I got up early, grabbed my Nook, and headed down to the pool to read until others began to stir in the house.\u00a0 It was wonderful to sit out there and listen to the birds.\u00a0 The heat and humidity don\u2019t bother me.\u00a0 I actually like them.\u00a0 It reminds me of being at home in the Louisville area.\u00a0 Rich popped his head out the door and informed me that people were up and moving.\u00a0 Rose was going to make breakfast.<\/p>\n
Rose was the proper domestic goddess.\u00a0 She made eggs, sausage, and the trimmings for breakfast.\u00a0 Turned out to be quite a feast.\u00a0 Rose claims she\u2019s never made sausage before.\u00a0 Hard to believe.\u00a0 It was all good.<\/p>\n
Rich and I packed up our belongings and cleared out of the guest room in an orderly fashion.\u00a0 I would be happy to stay and sit by the pool.\u00a0 It always made for an enjoyable start to my day.\u00a0 We managed to find everything and pretty much left the room as we found it.\u00a0 Almost as we found it.\u00a0 I forgot to make the bed!<\/p>\n
I remembered that it was Rick\u2019s birthday today.\u00a0 That\u2019s their father and not my son.\u00a0 There are a lot of Richards in this family still.\u00a0 Rose has a container of his ashes on the mantel.\u00a0 I made it a point to say Happy Birthday to him.\u00a0 This Rick would have been 72 years old today.<\/p>\n
We couldn\u2019t put it off any longer.\u00a0 We hugged Rose good bye and thanked her for the warm hospitality during our stay.\u00a0 We were kept very busy.\u00a0 So busy that Rich never got around to showing Rose how to trim the many, many rosebushes around the house.\u00a0 Guess we\u2019ll have to come back again.<\/p>\n
We headed back up the interstate in the direction of Dallas.\u00a0 We discovered that the back hatch was not shut and had to stop off to shut it.\u00a0 Rich decided he had to have more coffee to get his caffeine levels back up to travel mode.<\/p>\n
In Austin, we rain in some pretty bad rain.\u00a0 The roads are built to drain the water away, so it was like playing mud puddles as a kid.\u00a0 Water was spraying everywhere when someone passed.\u00a0 At one point, the rain was coming down so hard, you could barely see up the road.\u00a0 Gradually, we drove out of the rain up the road and the sun came out.\u00a0 Good driving weather had found us.<\/p>\n
Around Waco, Rich began looking for a Whataburger.\u00a0 He just had to have a taste of his childhood before he left the area.\u00a0 We had seen them on every street corner in San Antonio, their corporate headquarter town.\u00a0 Here on the road, we were having trouble finding one.\u00a0 Finally, one of the tall signs appeared on the horizon like a beacon to guide to their parking lot.<\/p>\n
I ordered the #1 burger with onion rings.\u00a0 Rich had the #4 burger with apple slices.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t bad.\u00a0 I remembered too late that Rose had said their shakes were excellent.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have to wait and try that on my return visit.\u00a0 Rich was happy to have a taste of what he remembered.\u00a0 I think he remembered it correctly.<\/p>\n
Back on the road again.\u00a0 On the way down to Texas, Rich assured me that he would read his paper and his books and totally ignore me.\u00a0 He tried his very best, but I can be persistent.\u00a0 We had a lot of laughs and discussions.\u00a0 Now he was ready to return to his newspaper and try once again to ignore me.\u00a0 I can tell you with the utmost confidence that I did get my fair share of attention today.<\/p>\n
When we were preparing for our trip, Rick was very concerned about the gas mileage that he had managed to eek out of the Honda while he was driving it to work.\u00a0 He had gotten the numbers up slowly to something like 24.7 MPG.<\/p>\n
During the long distance drives, you can really get the mileage up to a pretty good number.\u00a0 I think I have up to 25.1 at the moment.\u00a0 It should a little better by the time we reach home.\u00a0 I have the satisfaction of seeing Rick\u2019s face and concern as it slowly drops back down to a number that he will have to begin managing all over again.<\/p>\n
There were no funny billboards to report.\u00a0 No one did anything outlandish or significant around us on the drive.\u00a0 We saw a couple of accidents.\u00a0 One in Austin on the southbound side with a truck that looks like it did somersaults down the highway and the lanes were closed so they could clear.\u00a0 That meant everyone on the northbound side was rubbernecking.\u00a0 There\u2019s my favorite pastime again.<\/p>\n
So we made it to north of Oklahoma City for the night.\u00a0 No, the wind doesn\u2019t come whistling down the plain here.\u00a0 Heading into Des Moines for the night tomorrow.\u00a0 Yum, we are stopping for lunch at Stroud\u2019s.\u00a0 I love that place!<\/p>\n
Good night to you all.\u00a0 For you in Texas and other points in the south, Night, y\u2019all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, that day has come.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to head back on up north again.\u00a0 This means my vacation is almost over.\u00a0 How can that be?\u00a0 Didn\u2019t I just leave? As is my usual habit now, I got up early, grabbed my Nook, and headed down to the pool to read until others began to stir […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,12,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2095"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2097,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions\/2097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}