My husband and I just got back from an off-season trip, our first one since retiring (other than a trip over to see family). We had a few goals for this trip, including:

* Trying out the new road ride, to see how she'd do for handling weather, fuel mileage, how much we could pack in her, etc.
* Trying to find Sun, Warm Weather, and Surf when the weather in Missouri was cold and cloudy.
* Always in search of new locations to explore, foods to try, etc.

Of the three main goals, two were realized. Sad to say, the goal to find warmer weather was not -- despite aiming ourselves towards southern Texas (Corpus Christi). But we persevered, and I'll post our trip report. I'll just do it differently than I usually do. Photos will be included, but as always, if you want to see more, just click on the photo's number link. It will take you to my Flickr public account where you can gaze all you want.


Days 1 and 2, Travel Days

We left our home in mid-Missouri in a small mist which was a bit icy. The roads here had already been serviced, as had all of the roads we were on that day. We took I-44 through Missouri and onto the Turnpike in Oklahoma. It either did a misty ice, sleet, or rain on us through Missouri, and when we pulled into the OK Welcome Center (I needed a new map!), it was snowing. We fueled up in Tulsa, the first of quite a few fuel-ups at a Sam's Club where they are less expensive than others. By the time we approached Oklahoma City, the sun was coming out and we were relieved! We pulled into Gainesville, TX, and overnighted at a Fairfield Inn there - first time we've ever stayed at a Fairfield. We ate dinner at a place called the Wolf Den. The food was just okay, nothing to rave about.

The next morning we got up to a sleet storm. We made it out okay and onto the freeway (I-35) which was treated and running smoothly. There. At that time. However, we kept getting promises from The Weather Channel that we'd run into less sleet, etc., after we passed through various cities. Nonsense, it either sleeted, rained, or just was cloudy and cold on us all the way to San Antonio. The traffic was HORRENDOUS. It was one traffic jam after another. We lost 40 minutes here, 10 minutes there, 15 minutes there, all sitting through construction delays and an occasional probably-weather-related accident. The weather finally settled, as did the traffic, after we got around I-410 in San Antonio. We got on I-37 there and the next two hours were smooth sailing. We usually check in to a hotel around 4 or 4:30, but it was close to 6:30 on this travel day: 475 miles in 10-1/4 hours.

We'd chosen a Radisson in Corpus Christi right on the Bay. To give them credit, they did say that they were undergoing renovations and there would be "some inconvenience". Well, there wasn't some, there was a LOT! Let's see....one elevator for the entire building and it was fussy about where it stopped, the restaurant was completely closed, the fitness center was closed, and there was no ice or vending machines in the entire place. We can live without vending machines, but the lack of ice was an issue. They are also changing brands. The wifi was great until they switched it in the middle of our stay and didn't let us know - it suddenly went out.

Pictures from the first 2 days:

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Stopping at the Oklahoma Welcome Center on I-44, to get a new Oklahoma map.

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Stopping at the Texas Welcome Center on I-35, to get a new Texas map. (Their map has a larger variety of city maps on the back, than the AAA Texas map.)

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View out of our hotel window. We'd reserved a Bay View room with balcony. We had a nice view of the bay, the USS Lexington (CV-16, a decommissioned Navy aircraft carrier now set up as a tourist place. It's a WW2 carrier, but was in service until 1991, so we remember it sitting in San Diego Harbor!)