With about 320 miles to travel today the goal was to pull out of the park about 9:00 am and with a stop at the dump station that meant pulling out of our site about 8:40 am.
We had an audience as we hooked up, checked the brakes and lights. About half the menfolk of a group of 9 couples were sitting around the fire across the road. They watched us so intently I expected them to raise score cards as we finished up! Of course, I would have expected nothing less than 10s across the board.
We pulled up to the dump station at 8:32 and with the 40 degree temperature, Michael didn’t hang out outside…he hustled back into the truck for warmth while the tanks drained. LOL
We pulled out of the park at 8:42, but not before seeing a deer cross the road ahead of us and being wished a safe trip by the gate attendant.
The beauty that is the Texas Hill Country
Rather than take I-35 all they way north we decided to take highway 281 north toward Forth Worth where we then picked up I-35 for the remainder of the trip. The drive was nice and scenic. I love the beauty of the Texas Hill Country and this route took us right through the heart of it.
The Death of a King
We weren’t the only ones who saw deer this morning. Zack and Kelsea happened to see a big buck lying down off the road. He tried to get up but his back end was not working. They were sure he’d been hit and his back was broke. They watched him for quite a while and he tried to get up a few times but just fell back over. They called the police and the DNR to come take care of him but by the time the police arrived he had died. Zack and Kelsea were given the deer and Zack took it home to process.
Lunch time!
We stopped in Hamilton (about midway) for lunch at Subway. We have several Subway gift cards so it was a nice way to utilize part of one. At not quite 50 degrees outside it would have been a little too chilly to enjoy lunch at Kelly’s Kitchen. We were back on the road about an hour later.
This we along with the message I received on Tuesday…he was ‘waiting…’
On Tuesday of this week I got a message from our oil field Company man saying, ” Shouldn’t you be just a few miles down the road from me by now?”. Apparently he was keeping track of when we were coming back to work as that was the day we had originally planned to go back to work.
I explained to him that we weren’t coming back to the oil patch due to our new venture and never got a response. Yikes…was he that angry with us?? Today I messaged him and asked if he was still talking to us. He immediately responded with, “I was waiting for the punch line. Because you got to be kidding me!!!!”. Gosh are we gonna miss him…but we’ll stay in touch.
Passing by Ft. Worth
The drive was nice and peaceful until we hit I-35 on the north side of Ft. Worth…then we hit the construction and congestion of the big city. However, the traffic still flowed smoothly and before long all the hubbub was in our rear view mirror.
We pulled into the Gainesville Cracker Barrel just a few minutes after 4:00 pm, our overnight stop for the night. We got parked and put down the front jacks for a little stability and almost immediately went into the restaurant for dinner….we were hungry! We double checked with the manager that it was ok to overnight in the parking lot and he confirmed that it was.
Snug as bugs in the Cracker Barrel parking lot!
When overnighting at places like Walmart, Cracker Barrel, Flying J etc we like to thank them for allowing us to utilize their parking lot by patronizing their business. It’s good karma.
Another gift card purchased our meals tonight! Michael changed things up a bit and ordered meatloaf rather than his mainstay chicken fried steak and I went with chicken and dumplings. It’s the second time I’ve had it at a Cracker Barrel and have really enjoyed it both times.
We were back home about 5:45. We fired up the generator so the heat pumps and fireplace could warm the place up and so that we could watch some TV before we call it a night…as I’m pretty sure it’ll be a pretty early night.