deep in the heart of texas

texas, june 2010

i was lucky enough to have off a 4 day weekend that coincided with my grandpa's 80th birthday (see this post), so after working out the details, matt and i headed to texas....just not together. matt actually drove down on sunday (the 6th) so he could be in town for the world cup games, while i had to (sadly) not fly out until friday morning (the 11th), though my parents *were* kind enough to use some of their miles to secure me a non-stop first class ticket....so i'm not really complaining (thanks, mom & dad!!!). i had never flown first class, so it was truly an experience! i got a cute little omelet and hashbrown breakfast and everything!!!

once in texas, matt and i spent some time with the family and helped to prepare for the big party on sunday. matt was also utilized for some ditch-digging during his stay with my parents. yes, ditch-digging. apparently my parents needed a "root barrier" put in to prevent one of their trees roots from growing up and into/directly under the house's foundation. the idea is that the root barrier will force the roots to grown down instead of across.....i know, sounds like fun, right? too bad i couldn't fly in until friday....

in addition to the big party, i also was able to spend some time with the family, enjoy some *delicious* tex-mex and margaritas and catch up with a few friends. as always, the trip went by too fast, and by monday afternoon matt and i had loaded up into his little protege and started the approx. 15 hour trek via car back to columbus. i do love a good road trip, but for some reason it's not nearly as much fun when you arrive at your destination at 0630 and have to be at work a short 7.5 hours later :P

fortunately, we took a friend's advice and headed through arkansas, tennessee and kentucky this time (instead of the oklahoma, missouri, indiana route we used to move up here) and it saved us about 2 hours of drive time. it would have been 3, but true to dallas traffic, we got stuck heading north on 75 for about an hour thanks to the semi that caught fire on 380....oh joy. it all turned out well in the end, and i will never complain about a trip to see my family, friends and, of course, the great state of texas!

the kings would like to thank the following parties who made this trip possible:

john and sharon miller

red bull

my iPod

garmin (and a Nuvi traffic and lifetime maps subscription)

our faithful mazda protege (with over 100,000 miles on it already!)

OSUMC (for my time off work)

gerald j. barak, sr. (for being born 80 years ago and giving us something to celebrate!)