Saturday arrived a lot sooner than I expected. We had hoped to leave by 8 AM, so we got up at 5 to finish packing, load the van, and do our normal routine. We wanted to get one last walk on the beach (we did...a short one) so we could have that in our mind as we drove back.
We had gotten gas the day before, so we had a mostly full tank to drive on. We finally left about 10:00 or so, dropped off the keys at the rental office, bought some fresh OJ and oranges, and hit the road. My wife always drives first. I cat nap for an hour or so, read, and chat with her. After about 4 hours, she is ready (normally) to hand over driving duties to me. That is the normal scheme of things when we travel together.
The drive back on day one went pretty quickly. We managed to get to Mobile, Alabama at about 6 PM local time. We unloaded only what we needed, walked and watered the dogs, and headed to O'Charlie's for dinner. Since we had been spending a bit more money on this trip than I had hoped, we opted for burgers for dinner. I have to admit that both me and my wife enjoyed those burgers very much. They may have been the best burgers we have had in months. They were big and juicy and did not need any mayo or mustard to give them life. We were in and out quickly.
O'Charlie's was just two doors down from the Drury Inn where we stayed, so we walked. We got the room we requested and enjoy a good nights sleep after I stretched out my legs and back. One thing I noticed is that I cannot deal with long trips anymore. My legs and back get very tight and sore from sitting that many hours.
I stayed up until about 11:30 watching the World's Strongest Man competition. They had some great events and the winner for 2005 has won it 3 years in a row. He is a Polish power lifter who is HUGE. Second place went to a very cocky American who was tiny compared to the winner, but he was very strong none the less.
We got up the next morning at 6 AM and started our routine as usual. I grabbed some breakfast from the lobby (sausage biscuits, juice, yogurt, fruit, and a danish) and took my meds. I was feeling pretty good, but I knew I needed to stretch some more before we left. By the time I had returned, my wife was out of the shower and she went and grabbed herself something. I stretched while she was gone.
When she returned, I started loading the van and then gave the dogs one last chance to use the bathroom. Both did what they needed to do so we checked out and hit the road.
We only had one planned stop and that was to get gas. The cheapest we found it where we were was $2.78 at Sam's, but it was closed and would not open for 30 minutes. The next best was $2.83 at a Shell station. I filled up, scraped the huge amount of dead bugs from our windshield, and continued on home.
The pit stops on the way back were pretty rare, mostly just for gas. My wife got hungry in the afternoon so we stopped for gas, walked and watered the dogs and grabbed some shrimp sandwiches and fries at "Kyle's Cajun Kitchen" somewhere between Baton Rouge and Lafayette. The food was rather tasty but the best part was listening to the young lady at the counter take our order. She was a Cajun! My wife and I loved her accent. I guess we could have listened to her chat about anything. She was super polite and made sure we had all we needed before we hit the road.
As per routine, my wife drove 3-4 hours and I finished the journey home. We got home at 7:30 PM local time and immediately let the dogs run. They enjoyed being free from the dog kennels and really let us know it by running back and forth and acting silly for several minutes. We unlocked and inspected the house (no damage from storms or vandalism) and got the dogs food ready so they could finally eat. While they were eating I went and grabbed the mail that was in our box from Saturday (We had a neighbor pick up the mail the rest of the week) and gave it a quick glance. Nothing was interesting, so I began unloading the van.
My wife normally will begin to wash clothes, unpack, etc the minute we get back, but this time I convinced her to take it easy. Law and Order was coming on and I wanted her to rest a bit. I took the dogs for a walk (one at a time) after their food had settled and I began to unpack my clothes. I also took the time to put away the electronics (camera, CD player and PDA's...no laptop this time!) so they would not get misplaced or damaged.
As I was looking around the house, one of the first things I noticed was how high the grass had gotten since we left. I cut it the day before we went on vacation and turned off the sprinklers (to slow the growth some...besides, rain was in the forecast in Texas while we were gone) but it still was very high. It looked like Monday and Tuesday evening would be busy for me.
All in all it was a very relaxing vacation. I only wished we had one more day off before going back to work, but it turned out ok. I was busy catching up on work and personal e-mail for 2 days, not to mention a ton of other work, but it was only 2 days and I am almost 100% caught up at work and mostly caught up at home.
I will have some pics posted in the near future. Then I should be back to rambling ...
No comments:
Post a Comment