Road Trip

Here I am in Decatur, IL.  It's already been an interesting trip, and the convention hasn't even started yet.  

Kevin took me to Blue Springs to pick up my rental car.  They gave me a 2009 Pontiac G6 with 6000 miles on it.  Pretty sweet deal.  I kissed Kevin goodbye and got onto the highway.  The GPS shows, on the bottom right, how far until your next turn.

Yup, it's going to be a long stretch of I-70, that's for sure.  I took it slow and easy, stopping for a bathroom break or to stretch my legs whenever I wanted.  This trip could easily be made with one stop (maybe none) but I was in no hurry.

I laughed when I saw this.  I didn't even know that Stuckey's still existed.  One thing that cracks me up is how many "adult" stores there are between Kansas City and St. Louis.  One was "adult superstore" and I pictured grown-ups lined up on shelves, and kids going in to pick out their parents.  Yeah, I'm weird like that.

I forgot my CDs, so I spent a lot of time station-hopping.  At one point, I found an 80's station (or a station playing a lot of 80s at that moment) and found myself remembering the words to all of the songs that I grew up with, although I hadn't heard some of them in years.  I rocked out to Walk Like an Egyptian.  It was sad, really.

I got to Pat and Charlene's around 3, and got the tour.  What a great place, and such a quiet neighborhood.  The weather was absolutely perfect, so Charlene and I sat outside and visited while Pat grilled out for us.  Pat and I had a big ol' juicy steak (mmmm) and Charlene had chicken, while turning her nose up at our beef.  We had baked potato and asparagus to go with it.  It was awesome.

Pat babied us in other ways, too.

That man makes an awesome margarita.  When it got too cool to sit outside, we went in and watched a couple of movies.  Before I knew it, it was 11:00 and I had an alarm set for 5.  My 1 1/2 hour trip to Decatur (I thought) had revealed itself to be a 2 1/2 hour drive.  Ooops.  I was to meet up with coworker Bruce at 9 to start setting up the booth.

Setup hours were stated to be "all day," so we met at 9, and found that the decorators had JUST started setting up the convention hall.  Cripes.  Now, I'm in my hotel room (thank goodness for them allowing me to check in early) and waiting around for them to let us set up.  

I took more pics than this.  If you want to see them all, go to the facebook album.