Trip to the game Part 1

I went to a Red Sox game in Arlington last weekend.  This is the odyssey

The plan was for me to go to work Friday, come home, sleep all evening, and then leave at 1 AM.  That might sound rough but I have a basement with a bedroom that has no windows.  I was also taking two kids with me and kids travel best when they are sleeping.  My plan started out well I got to bed by 4:30 and pretty much fell right asleep. The only problem is it was my wife's birthday and she had lots of visitors.  Visitors are loud. That coupled with my son deciding to play with his marbles on the upstairs tile floor really cut into my planned sleeping time. 

When I got out of bed at midnight I loaded the car with luggage and carried out sleeping kids.  I had taken out the back seat of the van and laid blankets on the floor for them to sleep on.  When I was a kid I spent many car trips in the trunk of the family station wagon.  It was acceptable then and to me it is now also.  I stopped at the nearest gas station to fill the cooler with ice and energy drinks.  Not Red Bull though.  I'm on a diet and sugar free Red Bull tastes like piss.  The only way to drink Diet Red Bull is with Jagermeister.  Isn't it strange how a concoction of piss and liquorish flavoring is palatable. 

I made my second stop of the trip two miles farther down the road.  I live in a town of 11,000 people that it less than ten miles across and I didn't even make it out of town before I got pulled over.  58 in a 50 guy must have been bored.  He didn't give me a ticket but he did tell me the kids had to get in their seats.  I wanted to tell him I would rather have the ticket but bit my tongue instead.  I got to listen to the kids cry cause they had to wake up and get in their seats for the next 3 miles until I left city limits and the cop wasn't behind me anymore.  At that point I sent them to the back to sleep again.  Defiantly an ominous start to a trip.

My luck continued when about two hours into my drive the air conditioner quit working.  Nothing I could do about it at 3 AM so I rolled the windows down and kept going cursing my luck and the 106 degree Texas forecast. 

When I got to Texarcana I had to stop knowing that as soon as I did the kids would wake up.  The gas gauge, not to mention the 2 Diet Rockstars and 2 Diet Mt Dews, didn't give me any choice.  Surprisingly it turned out to be a good thing.  First of the driver of the car at the pump next to me dang near made my "Top 10 HGIHSIP List".  Secondly when I got back on the road the air started working again.  My luck seemed to be improving. 

I was in autopilot mode by this time so the rest of the drive wasn't worth mentioning, except that I made it in 7 hours and 15 minutes.  That included stopping for ice, cop, and gas.  Not really sure how I did that since I only set the cruise at 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.  We had planned on going to hurricane Harbor water park when we got to Arlington but we were now hours early.  So we slept in the car in a Denny's restaurant parking lot before we got up and ate.  Big mistake.  I didn't even get out of the building before I was sick.  Thank you Denny.

So we got to Hurricane Harbor and waited and waited and waited to get in.  When they finally let us in everyone was happy to get out of the sun and into the water.  We mostly stuck to the pools because the lines were crazy ass long.  I don't know why there were so many people there but it had to be unusual for them because I noticed on our way out they were parking cars in the grass all over around the outside of the park because all the parking lots were full.  All the waiting in line served a good purpose though.  We realized that our kids were to small for the Disney trip we were planning for next year.  Better to find that out now than after we were in Orlando for a weekend. 

Another thing that happened at Hurricane Harbor is that 1st place on my Top 10 Hottest Girls I Have Seen In Person List got bumped.  All I can say is WOW!  FYI....  the number one from this post got displaced to number two by a girl at a soccer game.  At some point I may move her down the  list out of fairness to the others because she had on way less clothes than anyone else on the list. 

After about 3 hours of water we broke for lunch.  We planned on a picnic lunch and then more swimming but decided that the kids were to grumpy and went to the motel instead.  I wanted to take naps at the motel but I got out voted and we swam in the pool instead.  (which makes a lot of sense since we just left a water park....Sigh...)

From there we went to the ballpark which you will have to read about in part number two.