Minnesota Vacation - 2015

Day 3

We got up this morning in Osceola, Iowa and first things first, took the dog out. It was overcast, a little chilly, and very windy. It looked like we had gotten a very small amount of rain overnight by the dirty water spots on the windshield. We loaded up the car and headed out. We went back to the casino we visited last night, but this time only for the breakfast buffet...no gambling. Too early for that. The buffet was fair at best, but inexpensive. One weird item they had was a breakfast egg roll. Never seen that before, and it had no real flavor. I'm not even sure what was in it. One bite was enough.

We left and headed north once again and hit Des Moines about 44 miles later. We stopped in Ames, Iowa a little north of Des Moines and filled up. With a clean windshield and purchased snacks, as well as a bottle of water for the dog, we're off.

We hit some freeway construction on I-35, but no backups. Not surprising on a Sunday. We stopped again just before the Minnesota border at the last rest area in Iowa. Potty breaks for everyone, and once again, we're off.

It's always exciting to cross into Minnesota as we realize we have finally made it after three days of driving. We exit in Owatanna and head west on Hwy 14 towards Mankato and eventually New Ulm. After a total of 1286 miles and about 22 hours driving time, we arrive right on schedule at 3pm at Lawrence's brother's home out in the country amongst the corn fields. It's a big, beautiful multi-level place with a basement, which is where we stay. The basement has its own entrance doors leading out to the backyard and the lake and river flowing by. It's not what you would think of as a regular, dark, closed-in basement. It's really nice.

Lawrence's family from all over the area started arriving and there were lots of hugs and shaking of hands since we haven't been here in four years. Lots of catching up to do, and we did. We were sitting on the back patio watching a large, dark thunderstorm move our way, and when it arrived the temperature dropped very quickly into the low 60's with strong winds and heavy rain. We watched the three horses run from grazing towards the barn for protection. The numerous ducks wandering the property were fine in the rain.

It soon became dinner time, and for some reason I started to get an upset tummy. Bad enough that I excused myself to the basement to lie down for a while as others ate dinner upstairs. They had grilled German bratwursts, burgers, potato salad and watermelon. It must have been the breakfast buffet that didn't agree with me. Too much grease and that breakfast egg roll. I took some Tums and the tummy felt better soon, but I still wasn't able to eat much until hours later when I heat up a couple of small burger patties and enjoyed those.

Now it's getting late and I'm getting tired. It's still chilly outside and we need jackets. It's supposed to get into the 50's tonight, something I'm not used to this time of year in Texas. So far the only plans we have are this Thursday were going to an old fashioned ice cream social at a local church, and we'll do bingo at the casino one night this week, and this weekend we may go to Minneapolis to visit more family and stay the night with them. Other than that, we're here to just relax and unwind, and so far, we're off to a good start.

Minnesota Vacation - Day 2

Saturday, June 6th

All three of us had a restful night and like yesterday, had an earlier than expected departure. This time at 9:45am. Next to the hotel was a gas station so I decided to fill up. The problem was the pumps were running extremely slow, so after a few agonizing gallons, half a tank, and frustration, we hit I-35 and headed north again. Yesterday we drove a total of 345 miles. Today we travel from the Texas/Oklahoma border to almost Des Moines, Iowa. It will be a lot more than 345 miles.

We didn't go far until we stopped in Ardmore, OK and the Denny's for breakfast. I saw another customer use her AARP card for a discount, so I did too! Saved a little over $3. I handed the cashier a $50 bill for my check totaling $19.90, and she promptly gave me 10 cents change. Um, that was a fifty my dear, so she quickly opened the drawer and gave me an additional $30. She said it was her first day. Uh-huh.

Somewhere well on the other side of Oklahoma City we pulled off for potty breaks and goodies. Is was at this point I finally figured out why the dog loves to travel in the car with us. I thought it was because she was with her daddy and Uncle Bill. But no, I was wrong. I can sum up her joy of traveling in one word: Snacks. At home, she eats dog food and the occasional scrap from dinner. On the road, and so far today, she's had a ham and cheese omelette, DQ soft-serve ice cream with whipped cream, Chex mix, and a Hardee's cheeseburger. We're only halfway through our day and she's eating like royalty. They're very small portions, of course, but to her, it's heaven.

If you've never driven through Oklahoma and Kansas, I can tell you it's always windy. It's mostly open plains and of the few trees along this freeway, you can see that they all grow a little askew and lean north because of the constant wind hitting them. Pretty interesting.

We made another stop at a large "convenience area" along the Kansas Turnpike. It has a Hardee's burger place, gas station, convenience store and large restrooms. It's no Buc-ee's, but it'll suffice. I was surprised when Lawrence said he wanted to drive! He NEVER drives! It's open turnpike and not much traffic, so why not. I'm sitting in the backseat with the dog and feel like a nervous parent riding with a teenager beginning to drive. I won't nap, I assure you.

I wanted to make note that we haven't seen one highway patrol officer yet. That was until Lawrence started driving and within 5 minutes a Kansas State Trooper passed us. The key phrase here is "passed us", not followed us. The nervous parent came out again.

(Later that same day.....)

I took back over the controls before we got into Kansas City and stayed with it until we arrived in Osceola, Iowa, our overnight destination. This small town is south of, and is also the Amtrak stop for, Des Moines. We arrived at 8:15pm, which means we drove for 10 1/2 hours and 625 miles. We checked into the Days Inn, and after unloading the car of valuables, we weren't really feeling too tired, so we loaded up the car with us and the dog and headed one exit north on the freeway to what used to be called Terrible's Casino. I guess they finally figured out that it was not an appealing name and changed it to the Lakeside Hotel and Casino. We played slots and maintained for a while. Lawrence about broke even and I was down a little, much like last night at Winstar. Not too bad.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Subway for a sandwich. It's the first Subway I've ever seen that is 24 hours. I guess being next to a casino you have to. We ate back at the hotel and got ready for bed. Yes, the dog ate Subway with us. She hasn't eaten any of her dry food for two days now. I'm beginning to think she might be a little spoiled.

Tomorrow we reach our destination of New Ulm, Minnesota. According to Google Maps it's 4 1/2 hours and 300 miles. Easy, compared to today. It will be good to finally arrive as we haven't been back there for four years. We usually go every year, but a few things kept us in Houston. We bought and remodeled a new house, which took a year and a half to complete. We also moved, I was promoted at work, we lost our baby boy Rusty and got our new baby girl Desiree 6 days later, I started driving for Uber, and we bought a new car, which is the one we are driving to Minnesota in. The time finally came to slow down and take time from all our jobs, drive for two and a half days on a very familiar route, and finally get to visit family we have missed for years.

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......

December Vacation - Day 5

We couldn't leave Shreveport fast enough this morning when we checked out. We didn't even stop for food or gas until we were back in Texas!

The weather was good as we traveled south towards Houston. From Shreveport it's US59 for the most part, and once again we passed through a number of small towns and encountered some roadwork along the way, but that's OK...We were heading home.

We finally stopped in Nacogdoches, Texas for gas and a meal. We arrived in Houston just as afternoon rush hour was beginning, but that's OK...We were heading home.

Once home we unloaded the car, cleaned it up as much as we could by using a hand vacuum to attempt to remove the large amount of dog hair that was all over the interior, changed all the sheets on the beds and started multiple loads of laundry. Some from the trip, and some created before we left on our journey. I was planning on cooking tonight, but that diminished quickly as I got sleepy after all the driving, unloading and laundry. Popeyes Chicken sounded good, and as we departed for Popeyes, I decided to check the mailbox knowing very well that there wouldn't be any mail in there since I carefully requested all mail to stop and be held until we got back. In typical U. S. Postal style, that notice was ignored and the mailbox was bristling with weekly ads and five days of mail. I'm sure none of you are surprised by this, and frankly, neither was I.

We still have a few days left in our week of vacation, and we have no idea what we will do or where we will go. Whatever or wherever it will be, we will stay close to Houston, and that's OK...because it's home.

December Vacation - Day 4

The day started off great and went downhill as the day progressed.

We got the car loaded and checked out around 11am. All the fog had disappeared, and it was a lovely day. We drove about 100 yards to the casino where we played for a while with not much success, a revolving theme to this bank-account-draining misadventure. We headed to the lunch buffet and enjoyed our fill of the many items, good service, and at a reasonable price. I'm having to watch my pennies at this point, you know.

We got back to the car and programmed the GPS for Tyler, Texas, where I thought our friend Roy lived, only later to discover through a phone call that he actually lived in Longview, which was basically in the same area. We drove highway 69 all the way, and it was irritating as it constantly changed speed limits as we passed through every podunk town in our path. It was fatiguing.

We arrived at our friend's apartment and had a nice visit for about 30 minutes. My plan was to stay the night in Longview, then head south through East Texas meandering our way back to Houston. After the visit we decided to go ahead and drive another hour to Shreveport and go to the Horseshoe Casino, which I originally decided not to do. I should have stayed with the original plan. We got to the casino, got our players cards, and quickly discovered that the huge hotel and casino sign outside were making up for the fact that the actual playing area inside is very small, had old machines, was kinda dirty, the machines were tight, and was a big disappointment for both of us. To demonstrate how money-grabbing these casinos have gotten, this casino has now discontinued giving the first-time guest a cheap plastic tether cord for the new players card. We were welcome to purchase a cord in the gift shop. What a waste of time and gas. We only stayed about 45 minutes and promptly left.

It's really been like that at all the casinos we have visited this week. No comps, very small discounts, if any, etc. It's gotten really bad. At this point I don't ever plan on going on anymore vacations for the sole purpose of gambling. If we see one along the way during a future trip somewhere, we might stop.

Maybe.

We'll see.

We got back to the car and headed down the freeway to find a place to stay for the night. We checked a few places and finally settled on the Howard Johnsons. As I have discovered on many occasions, a low price usually means low expectations. I'll throw hundreds of dollars to the wind at a casino, but when it comes to a hotel, I'm a major tightwad. I'll search and search to find the best deal, and that low price always comes with irritants, such as the case with our selection this evening. The back security door doesn't work. All the sprinklers were on around the property with most of them damaged and shooting in the air like Old Faithful. The building, sidewalks, and many customer vehicles were getting watered more than the grass. Once in the room, the air conditioner is barely working. I have it on "high fan" and it's barely blowing any air at all, and no, it's not frozen up. Lawrence already made that suggestion.

Tomorrow I plan on somewhat bee-lining it to Houston by way of East Texas and doing some antiquing along the way. I can't buy anything of course since I now have $27 to my name until payday. We'll just browse, thank you. I have a new iPhone 6+ waiting for me when I get home, along with my own bed and thankfully no casinos for hundreds of miles in any direction. The further away they are, the better.

As some of you know, I drive part-time for Uber now, and I'm gonna need to do a lot more driving to recover from my losses on this trip. $800 could have gone to a lot better use, like a trip to London to visit friends, or fly to California and visit my brother. Oh, wait, they have casinos in California. Scratch that.

December Vacation - Day 3

Although it was foggy overnight, it was clear and sunny when we checked out this morning in Norman. We got the car loaded with all the luggage, electronics and the dog, and we drove about 200 feet to the Waffle House next door. Being that it was Monday around 10:30am, we were the only ones in the restaurant, which is unusual if you've ever been to a Waffle House. We both had breakfast, and it was actually quite good.

We then drove about 50 yards to the Walmart directly behind the hotel and got some supplies for the dog, namely rawhide chewies and some Beneful meal starters to mix into Desiree's kibble. She's being fussy about eating and needs some moist encouragement.

We then drove about a mile to the ATM at Chase Bank for me. It's going to be a long 4 days until payday.

After all the errands were done, we headed back south on I-35 a little over an hour to Highway 70 East towards Durant, Oklahoma, home of the Choctaw Casino. The casino is beautiful inside and very large. Again, being that it's a Monday in the early afternoon, you could throw a rock in any direction inside the casino and not hit anyone, but you would hit a slot machine. There's a bunch of them in this place. By the way, I wouldn't throw any rocks in any casino. Security would not be amused.

We played slots for a few hours, and I tried blackjack as well. The table wiped me out of $40 in about five minutes. I stopped playing as I was once again heading down the road to the poor house, so I followed Lawrence around and watched him play for a while. We broke for dinner around 6pm, and we decided to try the Monday special in the cafe instead of the buffet. It was Steak and Shrimp for $9.99, whereas the buffet was about $13.50 with our players card discount. We were both a little disappointed in the dinner as the steaks were small, and the shrimp were a few small broiled morsels. Not what we expected at all. It tasted good, but it wasn't very filling, so we ordered a piece of coconut cream pie and shared that. Lawrence had iced tea and I had water. Add it all up and we spent about the same as we would have at the buffet with a large selection of everything. Live and learn.

We went back to playing for awhile and I finally found a neat slot machine I really liked called Frankenstein. Fun to play with lots of easy little bonuses. I was actually able to maintain a decent balance of money for a few hours. A nice change.

It was just after midnight when I made arrangements to stay at the casino lodge which offered a good non-weekend rate, and good thing because when I walked out to the car, it was 37 degrees and so foggy you couldn't see more then about 50 feet in front of you. I drove all around the casino property very slowly looking for the lodge, and it took about 20 minutes to find it, although it was right next door in a shared parking lot. That tells you just how foggy it was.

We're not sure what tomorrow brings. Should we drive four hours to Shreveport and do more gambling, or jump across the border into Texas (which we are very close to) and head for Tyler, where our friend Roy lives? I'd rather go to Tyler and give up on this very expensive outpouring of money, but I'll leave it up to Lawrence and what he wants to do.

Tomorrow is a new day filled with choices of destination. I just hope the fog lifts before we head anywhere.

December Vacation - Day 2

Last night we didn't get to sleep until after 3:30am, so I requested a late checkout from the usual 11:00am time. The front desk clerk was generous with an additional 30 minutes. Gee, thanks.

As I was loading the car, Lawrence was walking the dog and was approached by the same front desk clerk who stated we needed to pay a "pet fee", and was perturbed that I didn't mention the dog when we checked in at 3am. Whatever. $16.95 later, and we gladly depart.

We headed down the freeway to the IHOP in Gainesville, Texas. Although it was nearly noon, we both had breakfast. Another stop at the Valero station down the street to fill up the car and it's discovered that the Valero has a built-in German bakery inside! Lawrence, with his combination of sweet tooth and a German background, purchased a few treats. All three of us, yes...even the dog, enjoyed the cream cheese filled pastry.

We now head north again into Oklahoma, with our next scheduled stop being the Riverwind Casino in Norman, which is just south of Oklahoma City. It took a little over an hour and a half to get there, and we walked the dog before heading inside. For me, it was a bloodbath. I've always had bad luck at this place, and it was proven once again as I lost just about all the cash I brought with me. Lawrence did fine and is flush with cash. The problem now is we have plans to head to eastern Oklahoma and visit new casinos we have never been to, before dropping south into Shreveport, Louisiana. I'm debating whether to stop at an ATM or cut my losses right here and now. You can probably figure out what I will end up doing.

We are all checked in at the hotel in Norman and looking forward to a restful night. There's a Waffle House next door, so breakfast will be an easy choice.

So far, all the roads traveled we have traveled before. Tomorrow begins a journey into uncharted territory for us, and we're looking forward to it.