Victoria and I have been going out for over a year and a half now, so it was time for her to come up and meet the family in Wisconsin. Originally, we had thought about flying, but as much as the weather can change from one side of the country to another, I figured it would be best to drive. It would definitely give us some more flexibility if we ran into some bad weather (which we did).
After I got back from my Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras trip, I headed home a little early since I already had 40 hours in. I took a quick nap and loaded up the car. After Victoria was done with work, I met her at her apartment and we hit the road shortly after.
Of course, any trip that you drive over a couple of miles in Austin is not complete without a traffic jam.
After clearing the traffic jam, it was smooth sailing. Our first stop was Buc-ee’s (the same one I did the blog entry on).
When we got back on the interstate, it was no longer smooth sailing. Traffic was again backed up. There were 3 or 4 different accidents according to Google Maps. This was one of the areas that has no margin of error. It took over 45 minutes to get a couple of miles before traffic finally opened up.
We made it to Guthrie, Oklahoma, before we decided to call it a night. With all the traveling I do, I was able to finally redeem some of the La Quinta points I accrued to get a free room for the night. The hotel was nice and new.
The free night even included an Elite bag.
The next morning, the breakfast was God-awful. I’ve had some breakfasts that were basic, but they were never bad. This place was just horrible. There was a pool of water in the eggs and they were somewhat cold. The sausage was hard, and the gravy was watery and runny, while the biscuits were hard as a rock. This is the first breakfast I had to throw away. So much for it being a new hotel.
The bagels were alright, so I guess I had a carb-loaded breakfast after throwing out the first plate.
When we hit the road, it was a bit wet and rainy.
By the time we hit Kansas, it was clearing up a bit, but was still a bit windy.
As we drove, things started to get darker.
We stopped at a rest stop a little north of Des Moines. There was about an inch of snow on the ground. Victoria, being a native Texan, was in a whole different world seeing everything covered in white.
Now, a lot of the white must have come in a little bit earlier judging by all the idiots in the ditch.
We stopped at the infamous Dudley’s Corner for gas.
After Iowa, it started to get nasty. We didn’t actually catch any of the bad weather as it was happening, but ended up in the aftermath that was just starting to be cleaned up. There were times the roads were glare ice, and we could only do 40. It took us much longer than normal to get to my parents and was around 10 PM when we finally pulled in.
The next morning, everything was covered in snow. I could definitely tell this much snow was a first for Victoria.
