Saturday August 13th, 2011 - Overland Park, KS/Ft. Worth, TX Texas trip - take two. Kansas City was an ideal halfway point, and we received the royal welcome and more from the Agars’ friend and former real estate person Brian Martin. He went out of his way to not only make us feel welcome - he bought us lunch AND dinner. We didn’t expect that, and were willing and expecting to take him and his three kids out for at least one of those meals if not both - but he insisted. It wasn’t necessary, but it sure was as appreciated. Brian’s kids and the Agar kids had been in a performance troupe that did plays and musicals at their church and know each other very well. They had a blast. I didn’t want to get in the way of any of that, but it did push back our estimated time of departure to the point it threw our whole schedule off. I wasn’t in any hurry, but we were hoping to make it to Fort Worth, TX so if there was any car crisis we‘d be able to fix it. The Skylark’s motor is rock solid, but the brakes were getting frighteningly spongy due to a lack of fluid. Nothing I know is so paralyzingly terrifying as to go to stop a car that’s traveling at top freeway speed and having the brake pedal sink to the floor with no results. I’ve experienced this before, way more times than I needed to. None of it bothers me at this point, but this is Tanner and Cooper’s first real solo road trip and I sure don’t want to put either of them in danger. I’m here to chaperone and make sure we arrive in one piece. The time passed quickly in the car as we went off on conversational tangents in several directions. One of them was Uranus Factory Outlet. Their generation will be a major part of my target audience, and we brainstormed about it most of the way through Oklahoma and right on into Texas. Both of them had solid ideas from a point of view I don‘t have. It was invigorating to stay awake in the car, and we expected to crash heavily when we made it to Fort Worth. Not to be. Every motel for miles was sold out, and we ended up in a parking lot of a Motel 6 at 5:30am with nowhere else to go. It was hot, sticky and none of us had the energy to do much of anything except try to lay back and grab a few winks. Car sleep is never restful, especially after a several hundred mile all night drive through the muggy bayou backwater un-air conditioned swampish funk of Oklahoma and Texas. I wanted to stop and get a motel room in Oklahoma City, but Tanner wanted to make it to Fort Worth in case the car broke down. I shut my mouth and kept driving. It’s his choice. We all woke up cranky, sore and smelled like the remnants of a rodeo. Tanner was a bit disillusioned, and had expected we’d easily find a room. I told him this is how life can go in the real world, and he’d better start to get used to it. His education was now beginning. These are lessons we all have to learn. We might think we have solid plans, but life just laughs in our face and does what it wants. Then we have to deal with it - ready or not. I’m used to it by now, but Tanner and Cooper are just catching on. This world can be cruel.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment