THAT didn't go quite as planned

I went out on my first road trip in awhile today. I learned a couple of things from the last go around, so I had my trunk packed and was ready to roll on this one. I hit the road nice and early, and as I drove on out towards Dalhart, the sun gave way to a dense fog that followed me most of the day. As I passed Sunray, I drove along on roads familiar, but not quite familiar, having trouble trusting my memory at each junction, as I wasn't travelling the main roads, and these backroads, once familiar, haven't been under my wheels in several years.

Today's job was pretty easy, so I was on and offsite in about an hour and headed on to Kansas. The game plan was that I would stop along the way and print out my documents for tomorrow. What I didn't count on was that it was Martin Luther King Day. I thought about it fleetingly at the job site when the customer was commenting about the current economic realities with the tag, "maybe WE ought to be the ones marching". I have to admit, I wanted to ask her what "we" she was talking about, but all I had to do was get the job done and the paperwork signed, not start a holy war.

So as I drove by the library in Liberal, I saw an empty parking lot. Nothing major, but it did mean I should probably put up in Garden City rather than an hour away, and preferably find a hotel with a business center. That rules out the cheapies (although in Garden City these days, there ARE no cheapies).

The roads of southwest Kansas are mile upon mile of monotony. I know there are people that wouldn't trade it for the world, and God bless 'em, because someone's gotta live here. But to me, it's part of the route, and I could drive it at night and not end up feeling like I'd missed anything.

Pickings for a hotel room in Garden City are pretty slim on Mondays, as I discovered. There's a ton of growth here, and the business folk head in on Mondays through Wednesdays, and head home for the weekend. I missed out on a couple of hotels, and settled on one right next to the job site. I had someone take a look at my guitar and ask if I was going to play, making me wonder if down the road I might be able to make a buck or two sitting in the lobby.

The guest computer was broken, thwarting my plans for using the business center, but fortunately there's a library here that opens an hour before I have to be onsite.

Tomorrow, it's just a matter of knocking out the job and rolling homeward. Then out to Amarillo and Lubbock near the end of the week. I overspent on the hotel room, but that will even out in the summer when I'll be able to put in at a roadside stop instead.