We just got back in from a 2 week trip out west, but the Pineapple stayed here docked in the marina. My friend Mark (see last blog) asked if I was going to chronicle our trip. I initially said, "No, the blog is for the spacefaring adventures of the Intergalactic Space Pineapple."
As the trip progressed and we had some interesting experiences, I decided, may as well as it'll be fun to recount the experience in a year or two.
Two reasons we didn't take the coach. First was time. To go to TX in it would be 3 days each way realistically, and that'd be half the vacation. The other was that we were collecting Lucy's Dad's 2005 Mercury Grand Marquis.
He bought the car about 5 years ago with 50K on it. It had 207K on it when we picked it up in TX (has over 210K now).
We had two whole weeks plus a weekend, so we definitely had some side trips planned. The first one went off without a hitch, but being fluid, our later schedule changed a few times, before we actually did things. The first week was fairly well set up in advance. Fly out Friday eve, hang out in Austin for the weekend, then on Monday drive 430 miles west to New Mexico and go to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Spend 3 nights checking out the Cavern and nearby Guadalupe Mountains Nation Park. I had been to the Cavern in 1988, but it was rushed and just drove by the Guadalupe Mountains on the way west to LA. I swore I would got back and had been eyeing this trip from Lucy's parents house for quite a few years now.
I ended up taking Friday off of work and prepped the house and packed up. We got an uber to the Tri-Rail station and everything was going fine. Just before we left, we got an email saying our plane was delayed for 2 hours. UGH. I decided we should go anyway on time, just in case things changed. When we got to the airport the board said our flight was still on time. Hoping the issue had been rectified, we proceeded to the gate. Then about 15 minutes before boarding they announced that in fact it was delayed for 2 hrs as the crew to fly it was late flying in from Salt Lake City. As it was, we were getting in around 11:45 originally. We finally got in to Austin just before 2AM.
Saturday, still on east coast time, I only got about 4 hours of sleep and was up by 7AM local time. Jason by bro-in-law was up so we took the Mercury for a spin to get breakfast. Later took it to the car wash and bought a new battery for it. The one in the car was working fine, but it was 6.5 years old and I was planning on driving across West TX and didn't need any drama.
Lucy's sister wanted to check out Wonderspaces So we headed down there. It was pretty cool interactive art exhibit with some very cool pieces.
There was also a REALLY cool 3D VR movie that was about 10 min long.
After that we headed out for the first BBQ stop of the trip.
Beef has really shot up in price. The menu said $20/lb, but it was actually $30/lb! This lunch plate for 5 was over $100 (we already ate some of it).
After lunch, the girls wanted to go to H-mart which is a Korean super grocery. Wound up dropping $140 on all kinds of stuff there, but had food for a couple of days dinners, etc.
The next morning my buddy Mike who lives about 15 minutes away, met me and another B-body car guy, John met me at the local Cars and Coffee. Why I washed the car the day before. It looked pretty good, and John, who has a 2006 Crown Vic gave me a bunch of tips of modifications for the car for performance gains. We walked around and looked at everything.
I left the cruise around 11AM as we were going to Lucy's aunts for lunch. Rest of the day was with family.
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