Blog Number 357

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Continuing on from where I left off from the last blog entry...

Friday, February 6th
While the hotel in Rolla was not as nice as the one we stayed at in Denison, it did the job.  The continental breakfast was not as nice or complete and for some reason when my mother called my room number, the phone in the next room rang instead of ours.  We considered randomly calling numbers near our room to see which one would actually work but decided against it and instead just informed the front desk.  We only had about 400 miles left and I had to (somehow) leave only 1/4 tank in the truck (the amount that was in it when we picked it up) so we attempted to plan out when we would stop for lunch and gas.  Based on experience from other trips, we knew that we either needed to buy gas 20 miles before St Louis or wait until about 40 miles past it.  I did not want to risk the latter so we only drove about 1 hour before we made out first stop.  One thing that I do only when traveling is buy the cappuccino that they sell at gas station convenience stores.  This is just hot water and powder mix I know but toss in about 1/3 regular coffee and it is not half bad.  The U-Haul had a nice (albeit only 1) cup holder so I was set.  The ride was uneventful (just the way I like it) and the kids swapped back and forth taking turns being in the big truck.  We stopped at a famaliar Ponderosa Steak House for their buffet lunch which was quite busy.  We were evidently supposed to get a basket of rolls but they never arrived.  I would not have known this except 2 men sitting near us were none too happy about it.  Based on their girths, they could probably do without a few rolls but despite this they were still upset and left a 3 cent tip.

With full bellies (and after leaving a much better tip) we headed on toward our goal.  Since we all knew the way home from that point and since I was doing OK with the truck (changing lanes when I needed to without needing my mother in the Buick to run interference) we decided that we did not need to stay together necessarily.  It was hard for me to keep the same speed due to the hills so my wife and mother had to keep changing cruise control settings so I am sure it was annoying.  The wife stayed near me though and we stopped again just past Terre Haute to add enough fuel so that I left the tank 1/4 full.  It was nice that I was still getting 10 mpg so the math was easy (I guessed 12 gallons and was just over the 1/4 mark when returning the truck).  We lost an hour crossing the Indiana border due to the time zone difference and arrived in Indianapolis right at rush hour on a Friday.  Now despite this, I can testify that it was easier to drive a 17' U-Haul in rush hour traffic in Indianapolis than it is to drive the Buick at any time down highway 121 in Texas (rush hour or not).  One of the biggies on the pro column for moving back to Indiana (or con side of staying in Texas) was the Dallas area traffic.  This experience reinforced this point emphatically.  We pulled into my mom's driveway around 6 and hauled in the suitcases but left the truck as is until the morning.

Saturday, February 7th
The wife had the video camera in hand when we dared to open the back end of the truck.  There were so many bumps and holes that I drover over for the 900 miles that I was unsure what the state of the carefully stacked boxes would be.  I have not watched the video but all in all it was OK.  I even got a compliment from my mother's boyfriend on my loading skills (if you knew him, you would know this is quite an honor).  It did not take us too long to unload it and I tried to keep the boxes that we would need to get into close or towards the front but I am sure I will need to go spelunking over some boxes in the near future.  The rest of the day was spent unboxing and grocery shopping at the Meijer's.  We ran into a few church folk in the store and tried to let them know why we were here.  Some things were cheaper than in Texas and some were more expensive but overall the prices were lower.  The wife tempered her comments on the lower priced items in fear of my lowering of the grocery budget.

Sunday, February 8th
We were very excited to be back in our old church.  Everyone was happy to see us and we had to tell our story about a dozen times.  For those of you readers who are not in Kokomo, I really cannot explain how happy the church was that someone was moving TO Kokomo instead of FROM it.  We are in the (extreme) minority here.  We were mentioned (specifically) in 2 prayers and also welcomed from the pulpit during announcements time.  The Sunday school study was great as was the sermon.  We really miss this church, I don't know how else to say it.

Well that should bring you up to date.  I think I might make a run to work today to haul in my office stuff so I don't have to do it all tomorrow but this does depend on my finding my badge for the Kokomo building and also depends on my remembering my PIN and it also depends on my badge still working.  I will have to let you know.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon