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| Miles Traveled: 278 Total miles: 3024 Stops: Music selections:
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Jim had to leave for work early, so I had to head out bright and early
this morning, no time for a shower, but I'll live.... I still wasn't
sure whether I was gonna stay in Dallas or head off to Houston... But
mother nature made my decision for me...
When I hit to road in Dallas, it was raining. Hard. Really hard. Normally I would say it was raining "like a cow pissing on a flat rock", but that wouldn't accurately describe how hard it was raining. This would be more like an entire stockyard full of cows that hadn't pissed in a week simultaneously doing their business onto a Hollywood wind machine. I was having trouble seeing the lines on the road. Fortunately, Dallas drivers seem to be a lot more uncomfortable with rain driving than I am... understandable.... so they drove much slower than I would have, and I ended up getting the fast lane to myself most of the time. I decided to get off the road for a bit, so I stopped at a Krispy Kreme donut shop to sample what I've heard people raving about but never had the chance to experience... Damn, these ARE good. They're like the crack of donuts. Wish we had them back home. I bought a paper and checked the weather forecast for Houston... thunderstorms. Ouch. I hope it's not raining there too! I started to debate whether I wanted to continue to Houston... If it was worse there, I might have just bagged this leg of the trip. I did't want to do that, though, so I forged on... Once I got about 40 miles south of Dallas on I-45, the rain stopped... it was still cloudy, but at least it wasn't raining. It started to warm up... I saw a thermometer on a bank on the side of the road that said 99 degrees, and it's pretty humid from all the rain. So I stopped at the next rest area... just to feel the temperature. Yes, it's hot and muggy. But not unbearably hot like everyone warned me it would be. I could live with this. I'm not melting, and honestly, I think Arches was WAAAAAAAAY hotter than this!! I'm more concerned about Vegas, I think. I got into town around 2:00 (about a 4 hour trip with all the stops!) and checked into the Motel 6 in south western Houston. Hmmm. After I checked in, I wonder if this is gonna be such a good choice. The place seems like a bit of a dump, definitely the worst hotel room of the trip. Oh well, it's paid for I'm at least here for tonight. I let all the Houston guys know I was in town, cleaned up, and took a short nap... I woke up to my cell phone ringing... it was Tony (Nineball). A few people were getting together at a club in west Houston, and he invited me down... Sounds cool. Grab some dinner, and bolt. The place was called "Outback Pub", and there was a decent band playing there, cheap beer, and a fair amount of eye candy. Nice place, and again I wish I could remember everyone's names... Cool bunch of guys, though! Nice to meet everyone.. After a couple of beers, Scotty (Spreadman) joined us fresh off work... It started to get late, so everyone decided to split... Scotty was hungry, and asked if I wanted to go get something.. What the hell... so we took off in his Mustang GT (It's that cool yellow they offered in '99), and hit the local strip that is a popular street racing hang out. Man, it was surprising how many cars were out (Scotty said it usually isn't like that). There was a group of F-bodies and Stangs together. A Camaro SS, a Formula, a couple T/A's, a Bullitt GT, and a couple of other Stangs, a Lightning, as well as some ricers... Turned out we couldn't find a restaurant that wasn't totally packed.... not surprising, it was 2am and the bars were closing... So Scotty and I decided to bag it for the night and hook up in the morning. I head back to the hotel... I'm wondering more about my choice here... There are a couple of hookers gyrating on a lightpole down the street. As I'm sitting here writing this, I can hear a couple others walking up and down outside the room here... I can hear them fucking.. Damn, this makes the Apache in Moab look like a nice place. Wonder if I'm getting sleep tonight. At least I know where I won't stay tomorrow.. I think this town makes up for it, though... So tomorrow I'll take a good chance to check out Houston... I'm already liking this city quite a bit! <<previous ----- <<schedule>> ----- next->> |
