Minnesota Vacation - 2015

Day One - Friday, June 5th

Surprisingly, we got out of Houston earlier than I thought we would. I thought we'd leave around 2pm...early enough to beat the Friday afternoon rush hour of Houston, and get into Dallas at the tail-end of theirs. We departed the house a little before noon, went to the bank, then headed north.

We made it to Buc-ee's in Madisonville a couple of hours later, and it was packed! I thought it would be fairly normal being a weekday, but I was wrong. I guess everyone had the same idea we did. After walking the dog, a restroom break for us and purchasing sandwiches and drinks (no, we did not get Beaver Nuggets or beef jerky) we were once again headed north on I-45.

Right on schedule, we hit Dallas Friday afternoon rush hour, and it was heavy of course, but the worst part was after we got on I35E towards Denton, we crawled all the way into Denton. There was a stalled vehicle in one area, and then everyone was gawking at how high the water was in Lake Lewisville. Throw in some construction the whole way, and you've got a miserable and hot two hour stop-and-go parade.

It was about 91 when we left Houston, and we hit 96 in Dallas. Thankfully, my new Honda CR-V has great air conditioning so we were comfortable the entire time. The car is getting about 32 miles per gallon and is very comfortable. Of course, the inside of the car looks like a rolling Radio Shack with all the Apple iPhones, Apple Watches, Apple iPads and their associated chargers all plugged into a power inverter. It was a geek-fest. That's just us.

We crossed the Red River into Oklahoma, and it was the highest I'd ever seen it after all the rains they had up here the last couple of weeks. We took OK Exit 1 and headed to our hotel at the Winstar Casino. We unloaded the car of anything valuable, got settled into the room, walked the dog again, and Lawrence and I headed to the casino. We could have walked there, but it was too darn hot. I drove the 1/2 mile to the casino and parked.

This casino claims to be the largest in the world, and it just may be. It goes on forever, and there are thousands of slot machines, and numerous table games. I did pretty well as I hit a $179 jackpot, which is very rare for me. We were getting hungry and decided to go the DQ inside the casino for dinner. Surprisingly, this particular DQ only sells desserts...no burgers or other popular menu items. We were directed next door to an actual burger place and had a quick bite.

A little after 11pm I started to get sleepy and we headed to the hotel for the night. Once again, we walked the dog and gave her something to eat, and we started reading and writing on our various devices. The noisy air conditioner, which I like because it blocks out freeway noise, is lulling me to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day as we are traveling through Oklahoma, Kansas, a little bit of Missouri, and into Iowa where we will stay the night somewhere near Des Moines. We normally go to Kansas City, but we want to get into New Ulm, Minnesota, our final destination, fairly early to visit family and have dinner together.

Until tomorrow......