Texas Trip - Part 1

We had originally planned on leaving early on Saturday morning and driving all day to get to the Preston's house, but the weather forecast was calling for icy conditions so we jumped the gun and left Friday afternoon instead. Cheryl found us a nice motel about halfway along near Springfield, Illinois, which made for a pleasant, not-nearly-so-long-as-we-expected trip of only six or seven hours. Tolerable. Especially with a good audio book to listen to.

The kids went with Cheryl to the library at one point during the week and picked up several audio books; they chose "The Pathfinder" by Orson Scott Card to start with. Orson Scott Card used to be one of my favorite authors back when he wrote "Ender's Game" as a short story (mid 80's), but then when he lengthened it into a book and then a trilogy, with subsequent plot complications and philosophical mumbo-jumbo, I lost interest. I still look at his website occasionally, but only to get riled up at his pretentiousness. He fancies himself as a food and music connisseur, which he may be; but his tone rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway - we had a quiet, uneventful ride out and stopped at our lovely little motel which was out in the middle of nowhere and barely populated by any other guests. A nice Indian couple apparently run it. The weather is getting bad and the parking lot was icy, which doesn't bode well for travel tomorrow. Likely we'll run into a lot of ice on the road.

But for now, a little shut-eye and a bit of complimentary continental breakfast in the morning, and we'll be on our way again.