Texas

We got up at 4am on Saturday and began the long drive to TX. It took us just less than 17 hours, which included many pitstops, lunch, and dinner. That wasn't too bad, all things considered.

Several things made the trip go by fast:

1) We hooked our laptop up to the power convertor for a make-shift DVD player, which kept the kids busy for three hours. Tim, my fellow intern at Calvary, had the great idea of letting the kids use headphones to watch the movie. He loaned me an audio splitter, so Jacen and Emmy each got their own. This freed Ann and I to be able to talk up front.

2) Early in the week Ann downloaded "Robinson Crusoe" as an audio book on MP3. I burned it to 3 audio discs, and the kids listened to the first third of the book. That was another great idea that burned lots of time.

3) This was the first time I'd traveled to TX since the speed limits have been increased. Every state from NC to TX now allows 70 MPH on at least some parts of the interstate.

That strangest thing we saw was a couple of roadsigns in Birmingham: "Pollution levels high: please drive less." What? What do they expect people in Birmingham to do? "Gee, honey, the pollution's high, let's not go buy any groceries today."

Anyhow, we're glad to be in Texas for a few days visiting with Ann's family.