First thing this morning I got up, showered and hit the road to drive down to Buffalo, Texas to meet up with Francesca and Bennie so that we could pick up Madeline and Emily from them as they are going to be staying with us for the whole week.
I made great time on the drive and I was glad to have a little down time in which to do nothing whatsoever except to listen to the radio. I need some real drive time from time to time and often I end up going a lot time with none and then having to drive way, way too much all at once.
There was a small wildfire in Rice, Texas right on the side of the highway. There was a ranch on fire. Trees, fence, fields all burning. There was so much smoke that we had a momentary “grey out” as you drove past it.
I was making a bit better time, speeds averaging eighty to ninety easily with people passing me easily doing over one hundred miles per hour, than Francesca who was having issues getting up to sixty five miles per hour. So we ended up deciding that it would make more sense to meet farther south down at Buc-ee’s rather than in Buffalo.
I ended up driving past Buffalo, Texas right as Francesca and family arrived at Buc-ee’s. So next time we will try to meet in between the two. Buffalo is halfway from Dallas to Houston but we live pretty much right in Dallas but the Grices actually live way down in Galveston so the halfway point between the big cities is not actually a useful halfway point for us.
So the Grices waited about half an hour before I arrived. We fueled up and grabbed lunch at Buc-ee’s. I won’t do that again, though. The line is crazy and while the food is good it is so hectic to eat there that it is quite unpleasant and there is no where to go to eat unless you go and sit in your car which is not what I wanted to do with my sub. In the middle of the night it is fine there but during the day I will not make the mistake of going there again. We had a really hard time getting fuel too because we sat for a good ten minutes before we realized that no one was getting fuel and that the entire fueling station area had turned into a parking lot. None of the cars had people in them and no one was coming and going from those vehicles. Grrrrr…
On the drive back north the girls and I stopped in at Exit 164 to hit the Dairy Queen there for Blizzards. It is a very hot day – continuing north Texas’ almost record setting heat streak.
Dominica spent the day cleaning around the apartment. We are in our best shape that we have been in a very long time.
It was pretty late in the day by the time that we got back to the apartment in Irving. Liesl was very, very excited to see us. She loves her cousins.
We spent the evening just relaxing around the apartment. I played Oblivion for a while and Emily hung out with me watching me play. She thought that the game was a lot of fun and enjoyed following the story aspects of it. I am pretty far along in the game at this point but there are still short story arcs to be followed that are interesting on their own.
Francesca has been playing Fable II this past week after I told her about it when she was at our place a week or so ago. She borrowed it from Joe and just loves it. We knew that she would. It is an amazing game.