Cannonball Run

Alrighty, it's been a while since I've put up an entry.. sorry for the delay folks but I have been busy and without internet access.

My trip back down to Texas was uneventful. I had a portable DVD player that my uncle had loaned to me, and my kids were glued to it for the whole trip. If you recall when I left, I said that my plan was to drive to Little Rock, AR before stopping. Well, I ended up stopping about 100 miles west of Little Rock. I could've made it all the way, but I knew family members were waiting for a call so I decided just to stop. So, to recap, I drove from Sturgeon Bay, WI to about Forrest City, AR in 14 hours. Not too shabby.

I got up the next morning and hit the road around 7:30A.M. and got to Killeen, TX at 4:30P.M. I dropped the kids off with their mother, and headed to a friends house to drink a few beers and watch the NASCAR race. The next day I picked up my kids around noon and took them out to eat. I took the kids to IHOP because it's their favorite place, we ate, then I dropped them off. I decided somewhere during the trip that I wasn't going to make a big production out of the farewell because I thought it would make it harder on all of us. My son knew that something was up, but I kept it all lowkey. I said my goodbyes to them, dropped them off, and that was that. It took me about 45 minutes to fight the urge to cry. Not that crying is a big deal, but it's hard to get your car packed up when you can't see.

Around 5:30P.M. I got bored and decided I was ready to leave Texas for good. I headed out for St. Louis and arrived in southwestern Missouri by 2:30A.M. I took a nap for a few hours in Joplin, MO then I gave Derek a call to see if he was going to be home. At that point I was about 4 hours from his house. It turned out that he was scheduled to work that day, so I killed a lot of time on the trip, and stretched the drive out to about 7 hours. I stopped at nearly every rest stop along the way, I stopped at Fort Leonard Wood, MO (I used to be stationed there) for a haircut, and hit up probably the best Army Surplus store in the world, in Doolittle, MO.

I arrived in Washington, MO around 7P.M. and went to Derek's place of employment only to find out they let him off of work 3 hours ago since I was coming into town.. So, I hooked up with Derek and he grilled up some grub and we had a few beers. We kept it pretty low key since it was a Tuesday and he had to work the next day. No crazyness or silly stories, perhaps next time we get together. Before I could leave Missouri the next day, I had to pick up a new tire for the car, one of the tires managed to develop a bulge in the sidewall. That's not a good thing to have happen on a 700 mile trip, so I got that fixed up pretty quickly. I left MO at 1:30 P.M. and arrived in Sturgeon Bay, WI at 11:30P.M.

I was back home for a day and I had to pack up again because I was going camping with my Uncle. We were only "camping" 20 minutes from the house, but it was fun get together with family members and friends, eat some good food, and drink some cold beer.