To make the drive worse, there was construction everywhere!  About every fifty miles or so, the flow of traffic would be reduced down to one lane for some needless construction project, and we would have to slow to about fifty miles an hour, for several miles.  (The longest one was about ten miles long.)  These delays were killing our progress!

So, to help pass the time during that long, frustrating drive, we played count the license plates, in an attempt to see if we could get all 50 states during our trip. We placed bets on how many we would get; John guessed that we could only get 48 of the 50; we would never find Alaska or Hawaii!  In order to keep track, I marked them off as we found them on our road atlas.  It wasn't long before we had twenty plates!

About a third of the way through Texas, we reached the junction with I-20, which we would take all the way to South Carolina.  The first hundred miles or so of I-20 was more of the same desert wasteland that we had come to hate so much; after that, though, the landscape gradually began to change from brown to green - a huge relief for us weary travelers.

Having traveled for just over twelve hours, we were getting tired and wanted to get out of the car.  John was committed to making it to the Dallas/Fort Worth area by the end of the first day, which meant that we had a couple more hours of driving.  Since we just wanted to get there, he kicked up the cruise control just a little bit, until he was doing about fifteen over the posted speed limit...

...and it wasn't long before a Texas State Trooper was on our tail, flashing his lights at us.  Crap!

John knew that he was speeding and admitted to doing so when the trooper asked him if he knew why he had pulled us over.  He explained that we were tired and just trying to get to Dallas before the end of the day.  In Arizona, we may have been lucky enough to get off with a warning, but not in Texas.  John was issued a ticket and was given instructions on how to pay it.  He then warned us to drive the posted speed limit, to ensure that we arrived safely at our destination.  (The usual lecture, of course...)  With that, he sent us on our way.

After that, we were more careful not to go too fast; we didn't need a ticket in every state!

We finally arrived in Dallas/Fort Worth around 7:00 p.m. local time - fourteen hours after we left the house.  Exhausted from the drive and frustrated by the speeding ticket, we just wanted to stop and eat dinner then find a place to sleep for the night.  Being unfamiliar with Dallas/Forth Worth, we didn't quite know where we should stop, so we decided to pick an exit - any exit - that contained both a restaurant and a hotel.  The first exit fitting that description had both an Olive Garden and a Lexington Inn, so we took it.

Big mistake...

Our first sign that we should have moved on was when we saw that the staff at the Olive Garden was more concerned about chatting with their visiting friends than with helping the other customers in the dining area.  It took forever for us to be served.  We considered leaving to find someplace else to eat, but we were so hungry that we waited it out. (We were just grateful to be out of the car!)  We were there nearly two hours, from the time we were seated to the time we finally paid the bill.  (The server, of course, didn't get a tip from us; he was just terrible!)

Our second sign that we should have moved on was when we saw the motel where we were going to stay for the night.  It was called the Lexington Inn & Suites, but it could have easily have had a disclaimer under the sign that read: "As Seen on Cops!"  When the clerk asked John if we would be paying by the hour, in cash, he had a feeling that he should have just turned around and walked away, but yet, he paid for he night anyway. 

Our third sign that we should have moved on was when we drove around to our room and saw that there were some less than desirable folks hanging around in the parking lot.  There was probably a drug deal going down, and we were just hoping that it wasn't going to go bad while we were there.  We also hoped that they wouldn't figure out that we had items that could be considered valuable in our 4Runner while it was parked in their territory.

"Maybe we should just go," John sighed.  "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Look," I said, "we've been driving all day and we're tired.  Let's just get a little bit of sleep and get out of here as early as possible."

"Fine," he said, and with that, we put Mary down to sleep...

As for me and John...well, let's just say that sleep didn't come easily that night...

Return to South Carolina or Bust.