Houston to Dallas……

Sorry this is a bit late, this was a couple of days ago..

I was driving up to Dallas today and had a couple of things i wanted to do on the way up there. There was the Buc-ees place that Gabriele had told me about last night, a Waffle House that Gina, Kim, Chris and i had stopped at in 2008 that i wanted to re visit for a flashback memory plus there was a place about an hour east of Dallas i wanted to drive out and see!

I left the hotel around 10am, as it was a Sunday morning the traffic wasn't bad at all, the GPS said id be in Dallas in 4 hours time. Considering I'd be making a couple of stops and then driving an hour East and then have to drive back into Dallas i was guessing id be at my hotel in Dallas around 4pm.

Few  odd things i passed on the way

  

I saw a huge billboard on the way up advertising the restrooms at Buc-ees “ Buc-ees we put the fun in restrooms” it said, this made me even more curious! I then saw the Buc-ees beaver sign in the distance.

    

I parked up and went in, the place was packed! it was just a gas station but the store inside was huge and sold everything imaginable, soda, food, candy, ice cream, home made fudge, and lots of cowboy and Indian gifts!!

The beef jerky counter and Buc-ees             The restrooms

   

I obviously couldn't take any picture inside the restrooms but they had life size cowboy and Indian figures and all the stalls were done out with cowboy and Indian memorabilia. It was certainly different and unlike any restrooms id seen before!

I got back on the road and my next task failed as i wanted to find the Waffle House that Gina, Ralph, Chris, Kim and i had stopped at in 2008 on the way to Rogers Dark Side show in 2008, unfortunately i had no idea what town it was in or where it was! i stopped by three places but they weren't the one we stopped at so i had to give up.

Took a few pictures while  was on the road driving up, passed an Arena on the way up and it had the sign Yellow Rose Arena across the front of it, would have been a great place for Roger to have played Watching TV :)

The Yellow Rose Arena                      Nice Impala i passed on the way        Road to where i was going!!

 

The next place i was going was a town called Floyd!! after Kami and i running around like kids in the other town we came across called Floyd i Google maps other towns called Floyd and found one just outside Dallas. The first sign i was near was the sign below saying Floyd 3 miles. I was actually in the middle of nowhere, miles from most houses, and there was nothing but flat fields, telegraph poles and quiet roads going on into the distance. I had no idea what was there but i had to drive out and just the place and I'm glad i did.

Sign says it all                                   Empty road to Floyd                         This is Floyd!

I drove the three miles to the centre of Floyd, and there was very little there. I was expecting a sign or something saying i was in Floyd but there was nothing at all, the railroad crossing above was pretty much the centre of the “town” I drove across the rail tracks and immediately saw the following.

This is my sorta church:)

  

I then turned to my right and saw a sign about 1/4 mile down the rail tracks that had the word Floyd on it.I had to park the car up and walk down rail tracks about 1/4 to take a couple of pictures, unfortunately there was nothing around to rest the camera on so i could get a picture with the sign and me in it. I tried every which way but failed, the sign was pretty high as well and I'm presuming this was so it was level with the train drivers as they pulled along side it.

       

I drove around a little looking for other things but the only other thing i found was the Baptist church. there were very few houses around and no business's at all.

                                                               My GPS telling me exactly where i was!

 

The town of Floyd

I hit my Dallas hotel on the GPS and i was 50 minutes away, i had to drive the quiet roads back that i had driven to get here and passed a couple of things along the way The first was a house in the middle of a field that had lots of old searchlights outside! there was stacks of them around the rear of the property of all shapes and sizes.

After 45 minutes i was 4 miles from my hotel and passed the venue for tonight's show as i drove past it on the highway.

Dallas in the distance                        Dallas skyline                                  Cool town name     

      

I arrived at my hotel around 4:30, chilled out in the room for a couple of hours before making my way down to the venue for tonight's show. Something odd happened to my GPS while i was driving to my hotel, watch the clip below and wait to hear what she says about 3/4 the way through the clip! I know Mike had fallen out of love with Katie my GPS but it sounds like she is missing you Mike!!

 

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Dallas to Denver….

I was up and showered by 9am, checked out of the hotel and drove the 3 miles to Love Field Airport. Id only flown in and out of Fort Worth before and Love Field was a lot different, it was old, very old and this reminded me of something! Today was the 22nd November 2010 and i was at Love Field Airport in Dallas, Texas. This very same day 47 years ago at this very same place John F Kennedy flew into Love Field for the very last time!! in fact it was his last time on an aeroplane!  As i was going through the airport i kept looking around me and wondered if there was anyone else here who knew the above fact!

I grabbed a bite to eat and waited an hour at the gate for my flight, i was flying Southwest and they have an open seating arrangement so i was lucky when i got on the plane that no one had taken the front row seat as of yet (i should have taken my normal 13th row on the aisle seat:) so i took my seat by the window right at the front. We touched down in Tulsa for 20 minutes before carrying on to Denver total flight time was about two and a half hours. I fell asleep for the first hour of the flight before arriving in Tulsa and did my blog  on the second leg of the journey.

My friend Mark was also flying up to Denver but he was going direct from Ft Worth, he was due in an hour before me and had a rental car to pick up so was going to wait for me to get in so we could both ride in to Denver together. We landed at 1:45pm, i went to the baggage claim to get my checked luggage and Mark sent me a text to say he was there waiting. unfortunately the baggage  took the best part of 45 minutes to arrive but Mark waited for me and we then headed into Denver.

GPS taking us to the hotel                  Denver skyline                                    Coors Canaveral !!!

 

Took us a good half hour to get to the hotel, Ralph and Lori had arrived in Denver yesterday and were already at the hotel and had text me to say they were waiting on us arriving.  We pulled into the parking lot, i checked in and stated to head up to my room, Mark was staying at the same hotel too but the hotel had it on their computer that Marks room had been cancelled! He checked in anyway and said he would call hotels.com to find out what was going on.

I dropped my bags at the room and headed straight up to Ralph and Loris room to see the,. It was great to see them both again we always have the best time when we meet up and i was forgetting when i left Tampa that i would see them again here! They are also travelling down to Vegas tomorrow with me and seeing the show there.

Lori and i

It was now 3:30 and we arranged to meet in the lobby at 5 to go out for dinner across the street. There was a highly acclaimed restaurant right across the street that Lori had researched and said had great reviews. I went back to my room and chilled out for 90 minutes during which time Mark called me to say Hotels.com had messed up his reservation and he was out in the car driving round trying to find a new hotel as the one we were at wanted three times the rate now!!

Lori, Ralph and i met up in the lobby and headed over to the restaurant across the street, it was nice and the menu was extensive, took me a while to decide what to have but i decided on the rib eye steak and a side of sweet potato fries! they also had a happy hour on till 6:30 and it was buy one get one free! so we did, in fact we bought several:) I had a couple (ok well 4 including the two free!) of glasses of Chardonnay and Lori did the same, Lori and i were saying how we both had a nice little buzz going on and were already feeling how we do at 10pm on a night out and it was only 6pm!!

We made our way back over to the hotel and asked the hotel shuttle guy to take us downtown, he asked where and we said anywhere! he took us on a brief tour of Denver and took us past the big blue bear which apparently is the most famous thing in Denver! well according to Lori it is! I've still no idea what it is but I'm guessing its football related!

We started bar hopping and had a glass of wine in each place, we ended up in a bar called the Tilted Kilt, you can imagine what all the waitresses were wearing and I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't be asking what was under a Scottish mans kilt if they wore kilts that short! Anyway i digress….

We then took the bus to the Hard Rock Cafe……. mmmmmm or did we do this the other way round ? mmmmm i cant remember, anyway, we missed the bus stop for the Hard Rock and had to wait till the bus got to the end of the street turned around and then we got off on the way back!

 

We had a good chat with the guy who managed the Hard Rock, he was a Floyd fan but there wasn't any Floyd memorabilia in there at all! He was aware of Rogers show tomorrow but had to work so was unable to go to the show.

After the hard rock we walked the streets of Denver and came across some bulls! I mounted one from behind in a leap frog fashion and the end result is pictured below

   

Its at this point that i don't remember much apart from calling the shuttle guy at the hotel and him coming and picking us up!! there's a few more pictures in the album below that i don't even remember taking! This entry may be worth coming back to every so often as you know how it is after a good night out you forget things and they come back to you as the day goes on!

Its now 10am the next morning, I'm laying in bed and uttering those words “I'm never gonna drink again” and this time i mean it!

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