Rules of Travel

Under the things NOT to do the night before you drive from Minnesota to Texas:

1) Go to "The Palm Tree People's" camper. Almost everyone in the campground has a nickname, some already given, and some from necessity. The Palm Tree People are so named because they used to have one of those electric palm trees that we could see from my brother's camper. We know their names now (Dave and Doreen), but that's too hard to remember. Other good nicknames (that I can mention in public) are "Norm", which is the owner of the campground after the famous Cheers character, "The Sloppy Stucco Guy", who I named myself because of his job and his penchant for leaving all sorts of paraphenalia outside his camper, and "Fred and Ethel", because his name is Fred and he's the right age, and we can't ever remember his wife's name.

2) Participate in drinking games. One was when Fred came down with a big brown bag full of those little bottles of booze, and you had to drink whatever you pulled out of it. Another was when the caps from the Kahlua and the Mudslide bottles were thrown into the fire and the bottle was passed around until they were gone. Ugh. My sister-in-law was putting the bottles in her pocket and not swigging from the bottles. Wish she would have told me those tricks.

3) Stay out until 2 am.

4) Drop your Blackberry at the campfire and have someone step on it. It was found in pieces the next morning. Shane, the guy who found it put it together as best as he could and put it by the heater to dry out. Thank goodness it worked or I would have had to drive two days without a phone.

When I woke up the next morning at 8, I thought about just sleeping in and leaving Sunday instead. But I pushed my butt out of bed and started cleaning and loading up the car. I told everyone the night before that my plans were to leave between 10 and noon, and I left at 11.

Until I hit Iowa I thought about pulling over several times, my stomach heaving and my head about to burst. But I made it to Council Bluffs, and that's where number 5 rule comes into play.

5) Book your hotel reservation before you leave. Both hotels I had in mind were sold out! Luckily, a kind front desk person called another hotel for me and I was able to get a room. It was a little run down, with peeling wallpaper and a funny disinfectant smell, but I didn't care much.

Today I drove the final 10 hours to Texas, and I still have the strength to post. Go me!