On the road again

This is the start of the "Trip to Texas" blog series. Yes, it's been a week (plus), but I am getting around to it now. =P

This first installment goes over a few of the "on the road" details. A one-way trip here involved 1,344 miles (well that's according to Google maps, the actual distance for the whole trip was over 3,000 miles) and an overnight stay. Roxie was none too thrilled with the whole idea of car travel:


But once in Dad (or Mom's) lap....

...everything was ok!

You can read more about Roxie's trip over on Da Wife's blog.

Probably the most upsetting part of the trip was all of the car accidents we saw. I believe there were 7 in total (on the way down), 4 automobiles and 3 big rigs. Most of the VA driving wasn't too bad (I think we passed one single car accident near Blacksburg, and another "somewhere" along 81 in VA (didn't note where). It wasn't until we got to Tennessee...

...that the trouble all started:


Yeah. "Welcome to Tennessee. Are your brakes functional?" So we spent a good deal of time waiting for this line of cars to clear up, and finally saw what the problem was (look on the right side of the pic).

...a big truck had decided to try and create his own exit and ramp. Needless to say, he did NOT succeed. We did come across 2 other truck accidents while driving through TN, the worst one was a rig off the road on the right hand side... facing the wrong way and buried into the woods a good 15 yards. They had 3 of the rig tow trucks all chained to it trying to pull it free, but it looked like they couldn't manage. All in all the trucks were a pretty big annoyance and menace the whole way down. (Though they did help a bit in the license plate game, Da Wife and I wound up playing.)

Tennessee did have a big hit though... we stopped for BBQ at a place in Knoxville, TN called Buddy's Bar-B-Q. VERY good stuff, if you're ever driving through TN, pick some up. I recommend the chop sammich and don't forget the potato salad!!

Once we got to Arkansas, I managed to snap this picture (at about 72 miles an hour, forgive the grains!)

You may not be able to see, but that is a continuous line of white birds. It stretched VERY far to either side of the camera, and seemed to be almost surreal in its endlessness. Until it ended. Then it seemed very real, but big. That's about the only noteworthy point in AR.

From there it was on to TX and about dinner time (for seniors) when we pulled over in Sulphur Spring. We decided to grab a semi-early dinner at a BBQ joint around the corner. When in Rome do as the Romans, but if you're not into bulimia, then go somewhere else. We were in BBQ land, so we had BBQ. The place in town was called Bodacious Bar-B-Q, and man it was tremendous! (I later found out it was an East-Texas chain that even had a store in Arlington, TX near Fort Worth [our destination].) The brisket was fantastic, and very well trimmed so not as greasy as some BBQ can get. It was good enough for us to stop there on the way back home and pick some up to have later!

Stay tuned for the next in belated stories. Next chapter is The Zoo (and other high point scrabble words).