It’s Good To Be “Home”

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well me made it to Plano, TX with no issues to speak of other than the normal wear and tear on the mind body due to spending 15+ hours in the van with your family. We drove about 5 hours on Thursday to the grand town of Marion, IL (which I will admit to have never hearing of it until I booked the hotel on Thursday). The EconoLodge there was sufficient. When I was researching where to stay in the south half of Illinois, this hotel was within my financial parameters and the recent reviews seemed to lean toward the "about what we expected for the price" category. All n all it was OK and met our needs. The place was clean, the beds were not uncomfortable, the heater worked and the shower had good pressure and plenty of hot water. What else can you expect for $65? So, if you are ever in Marion, IL, for any reason, and all the other hotels are full, and you can't drive on to the next city, then by all means, stay at the EconoLodge.

Since we only drive about 5 hours on Thursday, that left the bulk of the driving for today. We got on the road around 7 central (local time) and were on the road for almost 11 hours. We had a few too many pit stops for my taste and our personal best time for a Texas run was not in jeopardy at any time We packed food for the trip so we ate both breakfast and lunch in the car so other than $7 worth of coffee, milk and lifesavers in the morning and $4 worth of drinks and snacks in the afternoon, and the gas, we got off pretty cheap. We normally take a route that goes through Missouri but this time we headed south more quickly and end up driving through Arkansas. After 330 miles driving through a rainy and at times foggy Arkansas, I take back everything bad I ever said about the boring, 290 mile drive through Missouri. We were all very happy to see Texarkana (the town on the Texas border with Arkansas [in case you could not tell from the town name]).

Since we arrived around 6 local time, we stopped by our old neighborhood right as we arrived into town. We spent about an hour or so catching up and setting up plans for tomorrow and then it was time for some dinner. We had planned on hitting Pei Wei for some Pad Thai and Orange Chicken but our plans were changed when our daughter discovered that her best friend from down the street had moved in the last month. She was quite distraught so I offered to let her pick any place to eat that she wanted. She chose Brooklyn's (our favorite pizza place down here) so as I sit on our bed in this nice hotel room, my stomach is full of wonderful Brooklyn's stuffed meat lover's pizza ($4.99 a slice and worth every penny).

Well, everyone in the room is zonked so I am going to finish up here and join them.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon