Sunday, March 5, 2017

"T" for TEXAS

Lucy and Ethel, a..k.a. The Back-Roads Babes, hit the highways again this morning (Sunday) for our third annual Texas or Bust Road Trip. Our excuse, as usual, is the George Strait Team Roping Classic in San Antonio, but we like to leave the interstates and meander a bit going and coming back.

We got off to a late start, and having to go back for my earrings three miles down the road didn't help any. It wasn't a very exciting day, unless you call finding a man in a woman's bathroom exciting. No, he wasn't transgender, he just wasn't paying attention. Annette slipped past him to the stall next door and stayed as quiet as she could until he left. I was entering as he emerged, and he was as surprised as I was. Looking up at the sign over the door, he laughed and shook his head.

That was at the Kewanee 1 Truck Stop in Toomsuba, Mississippi, our first pit and fuel stop. But diesel was $2.89 a gallon there, so we just got 10 gallons. We had brought along a cooler filled with baked chicken, potato salad, cole slaw, water, apple juice, cheese, cherry tomatoes, summer sausage and fruit. We also had a sack full of snacks and some bowls and plastic cutlery.  It was about 2 p.m. by then, and we were starved, so we picnicked in the truck before leaving the truck stop.

About 100 miles later, we saw a sign for diesel at $2.27 at the Clinton exit, so we stopped and filled up the dually. We were six miles down the road before Annette happened to see a sign saying, "I-20 East." We had been gabbing so much we didn't realize we had gotten back on the interstate going the wrong way. We do like to talk.

It started raining shortly after we headed west again, but that didn't slow us down much. We made one more potty stop, and the cashier didn't understand, much less appreciate, my comment about giving her the tail-end of our business. By the time darkness fell, I was getting tired and my back was hurting, so we decided to stop for the night on the eastern side of Shreveport so we would miss the Monday-morning rush-hour traffic. As Bossier City melted into Shreveport, we decided to try to hit Texas before bedding down for the night. After all, the state line was but 19 miles away. About 8 p.m. we made it into Marshall, Texas,  where we dragged our butts and our suitcases into an Econolodge. Dinner was another picnic, but in our room this time.

We hope to have some adventures tomorrow, because we're going to leave I-20 behind at Longview and hit U.S. Highway 69. Then it's own to Mineola and a quilt shop, then Denison to visit some NFPW friends. With luck, we might make it to Fort Worth by tomorrow night.

If I'm not too tired, I'll update this post daily. Maybe I can figure out how to add photos to this blog via my iPad and Blogger. It just doesn't work the same as on my MacBook Pro.

Stay tuned.

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