New record: Longest domestic solo trip
I actually have something to write about for the first time in a royal blue moon. I figured I'd travel to the A&M basketball game in Columbia Freaking Missouri ( or Missourah for all you Dave South fans) and get out of the armpit that is Houston. (Sometimes it even smells like an armpit).. anyway, I leave at 1:00AM on Tuesday after getting some sleep and drive 14 hours straight to catch the game at 7:00PM that night. I was amazed that I didn't get tired at all the entire trip. My only stops included Texarkana, some no name town in Arkansas, and some no name town in Missouri.
Oh, and my stop in Arkansas was in the Ozarks in NE Arkansas just before the border. It had snowed a good half foot and it was beautiful. A small river or stream flowed through the town with geese hanging out on the sandbars... or whatever you call them..you know the little islands that are always in the middle of a stream. I was glad when I saw it that I had decided to take a trip, albeit I needed to save money but oh well. It was worth it already.
So I made it into Columbia at about 4:00PM and found a hotel. I jetted up to the game about 6:00PM, and it took me about 45 minutes to figure out where to park and everything. The cool thing is that their parking garages are free.. yeah ... FREE!!! So, I just parked in FREE visitor parking and headed to the arena.
Missouri's new basketball arena is nice. I was impressed... it looked more like a professional arena than Reed. For some reason, Reed Arena just doesn't have that dazzle about it. As I expected, Missouri's crowd was very weak. They turned out about 6,000, but the noise level was equal to that of a Reed attendance of 30... maybe 32, cuz I did hear two guys yell one time and the whole arena could hear them... yeah it was that quiet. I asked a guy behind me about the crowd and he said the student section is awful. They only come out to games against top opponents when Mizzou is good... I told him, too bad. (I thought about saying, "Dang, I wouldn't know how that feels".. but I restrained as he was a nice guy). I was part of a "whooping" (not to be confused with whopping) 5 Aggies that I saw the entire night, not that I expected more.
The game was actually pretty boring. It was kinda like watching the Baylor/A&M football game this year. Just waiting for the Ags to start playing, but never really turning up the mojo... only to have the team outplaying us hand us the game on a silver platter. We did play good D in the 2nd half though. The fans were all crying and booing their players, it was embarrasing. I was proud to be an Aggie, and proud that we don't boo our own players. To top it all off, Mizzou's campus is ugly. Just a buncha regular brown buildings.
So, the game was ho-hum, and I was so tired that I went back to the Motel 6, a nice room to my delight, without eating all night and crashed in about 54 seconds. I woke up the next morning and drove to Fayetteville.. home of the Razorbacks. I checked out their campus. It was ok. It was hard to get to because the roads are all windy (as in wound up, not breezy) and they go up and down the Ozarks. Lots of the students looked like hippies, I thought I was in mini-Austin. Once again, I thought about how proud I was to be an Aggie. One of the gas clerks I talked to when stopping noticed my Aggie Ring and complimented it. I decided after checking out the town to drive on and see where the road takes me.
I left Arkansas, and headed west towards Tulsa, OK. I got into Tulsa at around 5:00PM and found a cool Cherokee Casino just east of town. I went in and played blackjack for a couple of hours, watched the Duke game and had a drink. I came out exactly even, and this casino even makes you ante 50 cents every hand. BOGUS!! I actually came out on top if you think about it. So, I figured I'd call it a night and headed to another Motel 6 to get a room. I noticed that Motel 6's are underappreciated. The room was just as big as any nice hotel, and less than half the price. I only spent 40 bucks, and the clerk was exceptionally nice.
The next morning I drove down all the boring Okie roads to Dallas, and then on to Houston to home sweet home. I concluded after leaving OK, that it's not OK. Oklahoma really does suck.
The pleasant surprise was that Arkansas was cool. The people were all VERY friendly (infact much more so than Houstonians jerks)... and the scenery was much better than expected. It was like a poor man's Colorado. The funniest thing about the trip was how many ollllllddddd beat up cars Missourians drive. It was unbelievable some of the jalopies these people managed to put an engine in and make run. I seriously was just waiting for one of them to disintegrate into thin air.
I was glad I got to get away from Houston even if it was 2,032 miles of driving in about 3.5 days. Yeah, 2,032 miles. I at least felt a spark once I got back and had to come to work tonight. I'm driving to Amarillo on Tuesday. God help me. Driving a total of 3,432 miles in 10 days will be crazy. I hope my car holds up....
Oh, and my stop in Arkansas was in the Ozarks in NE Arkansas just before the border. It had snowed a good half foot and it was beautiful. A small river or stream flowed through the town with geese hanging out on the sandbars... or whatever you call them..you know the little islands that are always in the middle of a stream. I was glad when I saw it that I had decided to take a trip, albeit I needed to save money but oh well. It was worth it already.
So I made it into Columbia at about 4:00PM and found a hotel. I jetted up to the game about 6:00PM, and it took me about 45 minutes to figure out where to park and everything. The cool thing is that their parking garages are free.. yeah ... FREE!!! So, I just parked in FREE visitor parking and headed to the arena.
Missouri's new basketball arena is nice. I was impressed... it looked more like a professional arena than Reed. For some reason, Reed Arena just doesn't have that dazzle about it. As I expected, Missouri's crowd was very weak. They turned out about 6,000, but the noise level was equal to that of a Reed attendance of 30... maybe 32, cuz I did hear two guys yell one time and the whole arena could hear them... yeah it was that quiet. I asked a guy behind me about the crowd and he said the student section is awful. They only come out to games against top opponents when Mizzou is good... I told him, too bad. (I thought about saying, "Dang, I wouldn't know how that feels".. but I restrained as he was a nice guy). I was part of a "whooping" (not to be confused with whopping) 5 Aggies that I saw the entire night, not that I expected more.
The game was actually pretty boring. It was kinda like watching the Baylor/A&M football game this year. Just waiting for the Ags to start playing, but never really turning up the mojo... only to have the team outplaying us hand us the game on a silver platter. We did play good D in the 2nd half though. The fans were all crying and booing their players, it was embarrasing. I was proud to be an Aggie, and proud that we don't boo our own players. To top it all off, Mizzou's campus is ugly. Just a buncha regular brown buildings.
So, the game was ho-hum, and I was so tired that I went back to the Motel 6, a nice room to my delight, without eating all night and crashed in about 54 seconds. I woke up the next morning and drove to Fayetteville.. home of the Razorbacks. I checked out their campus. It was ok. It was hard to get to because the roads are all windy (as in wound up, not breezy) and they go up and down the Ozarks. Lots of the students looked like hippies, I thought I was in mini-Austin. Once again, I thought about how proud I was to be an Aggie. One of the gas clerks I talked to when stopping noticed my Aggie Ring and complimented it. I decided after checking out the town to drive on and see where the road takes me.
I left Arkansas, and headed west towards Tulsa, OK. I got into Tulsa at around 5:00PM and found a cool Cherokee Casino just east of town. I went in and played blackjack for a couple of hours, watched the Duke game and had a drink. I came out exactly even, and this casino even makes you ante 50 cents every hand. BOGUS!! I actually came out on top if you think about it. So, I figured I'd call it a night and headed to another Motel 6 to get a room. I noticed that Motel 6's are underappreciated. The room was just as big as any nice hotel, and less than half the price. I only spent 40 bucks, and the clerk was exceptionally nice.
The next morning I drove down all the boring Okie roads to Dallas, and then on to Houston to home sweet home. I concluded after leaving OK, that it's not OK. Oklahoma really does suck.
The pleasant surprise was that Arkansas was cool. The people were all VERY friendly (infact much more so than Houstonians jerks)... and the scenery was much better than expected. It was like a poor man's Colorado. The funniest thing about the trip was how many ollllllddddd beat up cars Missourians drive. It was unbelievable some of the jalopies these people managed to put an engine in and make run. I seriously was just waiting for one of them to disintegrate into thin air.
I was glad I got to get away from Houston even if it was 2,032 miles of driving in about 3.5 days. Yeah, 2,032 miles. I at least felt a spark once I got back and had to come to work tonight. I'm driving to Amarillo on Tuesday. God help me. Driving a total of 3,432 miles in 10 days will be crazy. I hope my car holds up....
posted by Benjamin K at 2/25/2006 12:27:00 AM
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