do These Glasses Make Me Look Like Buddy Holly?

I blame Mac Davis.

Everytime I get a dispatch to Lubbock, I feel a shudder. A strange disturbance in the Force, if you will, and it's all Mac's fault. I'm referring, of course, to his well known ditty about happiness being Lubbock Texas in the rear view mirror.

My sojourn home was brief enough, and in preparing for Thursday and Friday's work, I had to decide if I wanted to drive 4 hours out tonight, or in the morning. There's not enough caffeine in the world to make me make that trek, and still have a smile on my face when I reach the jobsite, so I rolled out, literally counting every milepost after I left Amarillo.

Whoever designed Lubbock's highway system must have been a road engineer who defected from Microsoft. It twists and turns, and, of course, I know better, but once I saw an exit for the road the job site was on, I followed it.

Big mistake. Being tired, after dark, and in a strange city is a nightmare combination. After ending up completely off track, I finally found my way back to the road I had come over on and decided to seek out a hotel room. A stop by America's Best Value Inn netted no rooms, and so I decided to look for the next cheap place. Terraced balconies seemed to greet me everywhere I went, and usually terraced balconies don't mean cheap.

I finally found a Super 8, and pulled in. I rang the night bell, and as the proprietor greeted me, a smell of curry wafted through the open door. It looked clean enough, and any port in a storm, I figure.

I surveyed the surroundings: a WalMart across the street, a Denny's down the road, a Taco Bell on one corner and a convenience store lobby on the other corner. Given that I had just driven 250 miles, I really wasn't keen on getting back in my car for the Taco Bell drive through, and I just wasn't feeling Denny's late at night, so I settled for the "Taco Express" at the cstore.

I have a feeling I will know what "Express" means by tomorrow morning. Grease is the word!

So I'm sitting here typing up my day's journal at the desk of my motel room. Hoping tomorrow goes smoothly, and looking forward to being back in more familiar turf.