Southbound 35...Let Texas Fill Our Souls

Thursday morning, July 3, 2008 I was up before the roosters. It's all good, though. That was the day we began the most awesome trip ever. I was in Mazie by somewhere around 8am. John and Marlene arrived not long after and we were on our way south to what I now know is the "Hill Country."

Jo and I had packed snacks so we could save some money on the road while eliminating a couple stops on our way to the ultimate destination - Willie! Marlene discovered quickly that our idea of "snacks" includes bologna and cheese. Thankfully, she was delighted by the surprise.

We had heard of Willie's Truck Stop in Abbott, Texas and decided to make a pit stop there, since it was right on 35 South. This was the first real clue that the weekend would be totally spectacular. We thought that the truck stop had been open for awhile. Willie has been on the road talking it up - he even talked about it on the Colbert Report. What a surprise when we were just one vehicle of about thousands to pull over and park. There was a huge picnic going on, including a stage with live music, tents of food, and a few people selling souvenirs. This was also John and Marlene's introduction to Jo and Tam in that Texas Country Fog that people seem to think we have.

There is a Willie Saloon, a Willie general store and Willie gas pumps. We were truly in Heaven. Little did we know it was just the outskirts of Heaven. We took pictures of everything, including the dancing frogs and frog worshipping the Texas flag. About ten minutes further south on 35 - we passed the Honeysuckle Rose headed North. We barely missed seeing Willie at his truck stop grand opening.

We made it to our 5 Star hotel somewhere around 8 or 9. We had a wonderful princess room with twin beds awaiting us. There was a pool and all the accomodations we could ever ask for. As we enjoyed a drink pool side we also were blessed with seeing the deer and racoons feed in our lawn.

We did have one thing to be worried about. Monkeyshine! Jo went to the bathroom came out rather perplexed, made me go into the room and look - sure enough - there he sat looking innocent in his OSU t-shirt. We knew better though and ran screaming from the room. That night our door was locked and we made sure that we both said our prayers to every god we could think of to warn him off.

Go then there are other worlds than these...