23:34 3/6/2003...
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...
Karen and I spent most of the day driving; we arose at 09:00 and Mom fed us and we were out the door shortly thereafter.
And I absolutely hate driving in Houston. And we hit the outskirts of the city about 21:00, when the traffic was light, heh.
Dallas, well, we hit Dallas at 17:00, really poor timing there, but we made it through that OK too, just a little frazzled.
Before I forget again, I need to mention the other story that I had from yesterday that I forgot about when I was writing...
Yesterday just south of the Kansas-Oklahoma border, we stopped at a gas station. It was one that I had never stopped at before, and it looked kinda decrepit. And, I discovered, the pumps didn't take credit cards.
So I pumped the gas and went inside to pay. The old guy who was running the place was out doing something, and I noticed a pair of binoculars on the counter, and one of those old paper-processing credit card machines.
He saw me waiting and came in and asked me how much I'd pumped, and I told him it was seventeen dollars and something, and he picked up the binoculars and confirmed the total.
So OK, that was yesterday's story. I don't really have any stories from today... just, as usual, going through Oklahoma trips some memories... Stillwater, Guthrie, Anadarko, Lake Murray...
I called Tyler when we were clear of Dallas, and he was home and answered the phone! So we stopped by to see him, stayed fifteen or twenty minutes, confirmed that he and his girlfriend were gonna come by JDs this weekend.
And then on to Houston.
We were supposed to get on I-610 West, but I got on I-610 East for some dumb reason, but I cut across six lanes of traffic and made a U at the next exit. Yes, I did... I was proud of myself. And then as soon as we started on I-610 South I called JD and had Karen talk to him, since I wanted both hands free.
Well, we overshot on the last street, and wound up at the entrance to the big stadium before I realized my mistake. Again, I made a U and started back up towards Main street and the phone rang, it was JD, of course.
So we unpacked and proceeded to keep them up way too late, it's almost 24:00 now, and I'd better get to bed, it's been a long day.
JD and Annette gave up their bed for us, and that was sooooo nice!
If you bring your kids up right, they'll do stuff like that. I don't have any personal experience with bringing kids up wrong, of course.