The rain continued to come day on Friday morning.\u00a0 The plan was to pack up and drive all day until we reached home.\u00a0 Vacation was just about over for us.\u00a0 This was our last day on the road.<\/p>\n
After showers and packing up, we went down to load up the car one last time.\u00a0 Pulling out of the garage, we got out onto the streets of Memphis.\u00a0 I headed south before I realized that I really wanted to go north to get across the bridge to West Memphis.\u00a0 The navi saved us and got us out to the expressway without going too much out of the way.\u00a0 Thanks, Navi.<\/p>\n
Traffic was a little heavy.\u00a0 The rain was light so it wasn\u2019t causing things to slow down much.\u00a0 The road curved to the west and led us over the river. \u00a0A white Ford Escape in the left lane was driving well under the speed limit.\u00a0 The driver was talking on the phone.\u00a0 I bet he had no idea he was causing a traffic jam as everyone was trying to get around him.<\/p>\n
We stopped in the West Memphis service plaza to grab breakfast.\u00a0 My thinking was that we ate well here and make it down the road a good ways before we need to stop for a meal.\u00a0 The restaurant we picked had a breakfast buffet with just about everything you could want.\u00a0 Sylvia, our waitress, got Rich a couple of eggs over easy.\u00a0 She also brought a full coffee pot to the table.\u00a0 We could fill our cups as we liked.\u00a0 After eating, I filled the travel mug from the pot.\u00a0 This was convenient.<\/p>\n
Rick and I went through the shop to look around while waiting for Rich to make a stop.\u00a0 Halfway through my round, I realized I had forgotten the travel mug on the table.\u00a0 I hurried back to the restaurant just as Sylvia came out looking for me.\u00a0 I thanked her profusely since Rich would have been unhappy not to have coffee for the trip back.<\/p>\n
Back in the car, we headed into Arkansas with the rest of the northbound traffic.\u00a0 It was pretty much uneventful.\u00a0 The flood waters stopped a few miles north of Memphis.\u00a0 I pulled into the Missouri Welcome Center after driving for a couple of hours.\u00a0 It was time for Rich to take over.\u00a0 I took a nap.\u00a0 With my sinus unhappy from the wind and dust in New Orleans, I needed to rest.<\/p>\n
About 2:00 PM, Rich decided the car needed gas and he was empty as well.\u00a0 I\u2019m not even sure where we were.\u00a0 We found a gas station and a Hardee\u2019s next door.\u00a0 As we waited for our food, a group of guys were finishing up and I heard one of them say, \u201cI haven\u2019t seen a Hardee\u2019s around in a while.\u201d\u00a0 The manager asked where he was from.\u00a0 The guys answered, \u201cIllinois.\u201d\u00a0 I swear that he pronounced all of the letters in the name.\u00a0 Do people from the state actually say it that way?\u00a0 I know Southerners tend to say it that way.\u00a0 I thought it was very funny.<\/p>\n
We got back on the road and headed toward home again.\u00a0 Somewhere around Champaign, we pulled into a rest area to take a break.\u00a0 In the rest room, a group of 10 to 12 year old girls huddled in front of the door and hand dryers.\u00a0 What do you call a group of girls like that?\u00a0 I was thinking a gaggle.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there is a good name that fits.\u00a0 When I looked it up, the closest was a bevy of ladies.\u00a0 Naw, that doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
Rick took the wheel and got us a little further up the road.\u00a0 I got to sit in the back seat and read.\u00a0 I always love when I can read from here.\u00a0 I snuggled in and got comfy.\u00a0 Before I knew it, it was a couple of hours later and Rick was pulling into the last rest area before hitting the Chicago area.\u00a0 As he was pulling, three buses were pulling into the truck lanes.\u00a0 One bus was pulling into the car parking.\u00a0 We parked ourselves and made a break for the bathrooms to beat the worst of the crowd.\u00a0 I made to be third in line, even though I can\u2019t run.<\/p>\n
Getting back out of the bathroom proved to be more of a challenge than getting in.\u00a0 I had to wind my way through girls standing in the hallway to get to the sink.\u00a0 At the door, I had to almost shout excuse me at the top of lungs to get out again.\u00a0 The girls in line wouldn\u2019t part ways to get through.\u00a0 Did they really think I was trying to cut line to go again?\u00a0 There were kids standing everywhere in the rest area lobby.\u00a0 Why were they all standing around in here?\u00a0 It\u2019s nice outside.\u00a0 Go out there and walk around!<\/p>\n
In the car, it was my turn to drive us to the house.\u00a0 Traffic was tight and rush hour was going to make it tighter.\u00a0 A fender bender on the eastbound side of I-80 was causing traffic to be slow on the westbound.\u00a0 I\u2019m always amazed that rubbernecking causes so much trouble.\u00a0 There was no blood.\u00a0 Once past the accident, the traffic picked up and moved down the road.<\/p>\n
It was getting pretty dark by the time we got into the Schaumburg area.\u00a0 Rich was planning to stop for chicken in Palatine.\u00a0 I really had a taste for hot and sour soup.\u00a0 Since I was getting this anyway, it was decided to come on in to home and get food from there.\u00a0 We arrived home about 7:00.\u00a0 Yes, we had made it.\u00a0 The guys picked out food while I started to unpack the car.\u00a0 The order was called in and everything was brought into the living room.\u00a0 There was time to get everything into its own place later.<\/p>\n
The guys went after the food while I settled into my chair and took a lot of deep breaths.\u00a0 Home always feels so good.\u00a0 One more Zurek Family Vacation in the books and ready to be written about in a blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The rain continued to come day on Friday morning.\u00a0 The plan was to pack up and drive all day until we reached home.\u00a0 Vacation was just about over for us.\u00a0 This was our last day on the road. After showers and packing up, we went down to load up the car one last time.\u00a0 Pulling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,12,13,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923"}],"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=3923"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3925,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923\/revisions\/3925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}