East Bound back to Texas

 Today we headed back to Round Rock, TX.  Lucy's sister had a baby shower on Saturday, so we were conscripted to help get ready for it, etc.  

We got out of the hotel by about 10ish as we lose an hour at the state line and had about 450 miles to put down. 

Even before we went out, I had planned to take a different route back as different scenery is always nice.   That and after that 30 miles of torn up road, it was an easy choice.  The first bit was the same as the way in up to where you see the fork off to Andrews, TX in the upper left (that was the crappy road).  For whatever reason, I also wanted to avoid San Angelo, TX so I had to keep adding waypoints into the map to keep my preferred routing.  Sure it added about 20 miles to the trip, but so what, new places to see!

I drove until we got to Snyder, TX (where waypoint dot on the map in the middle is).  We stopped for Dairy Queen and since Naya didn't want anything, she gets to drive!.   She drove the next 4.5 hours back to the house in Round Rock.   It was good practice, some small towns, hills, and LOTS of wide open roads with 75mph speed limits.   There was one section of passing zone where I told her to get on it, to pass a slow truck ahead.  She kept rolling it and I looked over and she was going about 93 or 94, so I told her, "Let's hold this speed until we pass".  She was comfortable with it and we got around the truck without much issue.  Before anyone says anything, it was us and the truck and no one coming the other way on a laser straight section of road.   

I took exactly one photo all day but did see some cool things.  The windmills are very impressive up close.  We also saw HUGE solar farms that went on for miles, lots of cows and hay.   Our longest stop was at the DQ.  We still had sandwiches and just ate as we drove and stopped for gas and potty breaks a few times.  

We arrived back at the house around 7 or 8 pm (was about 8..5 hour drive), and Lucy's sister went and got us fried chicken for dinner.

Friday was family time and prepping for the shower...