On the road again

By 4:10 am on Saturday we were on the road headed to the Westminster Park-N-Ride to catch the SkyRide to the airport.  I think I was nervous about the car purchase because I could not sleep at all the night before. Our flight was uneventful and we landed without incident in Dallas a few hours later. Mitch from Classic of Denton was there with our new car to pick us up! There it is, our new car! Of course it's not brand new, it's a 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid.

We headed to the dealership and after a few hours of paperwork and listening to the finance guy ramble we headed out towards home.

We were starving when we hit Bowie, TX. We made it to Main St. and saw this cute little place named Nostalgia Antiques & Soda Fountain that said they had fresh sandwiches.  I have never been to a place quite like it. It was a restaurant and soda fountain inside an antique store.  My Grandma Walker would have LOVED it!

We got our sandwiches, chips, drinks and desserts for only $23.  Love that all meals came with dessert. So tasty. I definitely recommend it if you happen to be in Bowie.  Don't forget to write on the inside of the phone booth.  We jumped back on the road and headed towards Amarillo.

We drove through small town after small town before we reached Amarillo early evening. The one thing all these towns had in common...Dairy Queen. The smallest one was under 500 I believe, yet they all had a DQ. Texans love their ice cream apparently.

First stop in Amarillo...the Cadillac Ranch of course! It had been raining off and on all day so of course it was one huge mud puddle. It was much easier to walk in barefoot.

We cleaned up in a nearby puddle and headed back out on the road. We had only made it a few miles before a big red barn caught our eye. 

Yep we ate dinner at a steakhouse called the Country Barn. It was delicious. Quite possibly the best apple crisp ever. It also had awesome sinks like this:

Only in Texas.  We were planning on staying in Dalhart, TX which was about an hour and a half away so we needed to get back in the car. Of course we had to stop at a western store.  You know it's going to be good when this is out front.

I had no idea that cowboy boots and hats were so pricey! I don't think there was a pair of boots under $200 and we saw a hat that was over $1k! 

Man it gets dark on 287 through rural Texas.  Of course we were too busy playing with our Sync system to notice that we were suppose to turn to get to Dalhart.  Figuring Boise City, our back-up wasn't far we continued North.  Yeah, Google Maps lied to me.  Boise City was not only not in Colorado, but it only had two motels and neither one of them were that appealing.  Here's where we ended up:

It may not have been so bad about 40 years ago but it was gross...totally rundown. At least the sheets were clean. Both Josh and I checked before setting foot in them.  I kept my flippy floppies on at all times outside of the bed.  Needless to say we never need to go to Boise City, OK ever again.  We got outta there asap.

The rest of the trip was uneventful.  We made room for the new car in the garage. My poor little Honda was kicked to the curb.

I did a quick run around our neighborhood. There was a bit much indulgence this weekend.

Time: 31:09  Distance: 3.29 miles  Avg. Pace: 9:28 min/mile

Total stats for the week:

Time: 2:19:55  Distance: 15.04 miles   Avg. Pace: 9:18 min/mile

I almost forgot! We went up to Ft. Collins to pick up our chickens from the farm. 

We are part of the Jodar Farms CSA so we get four fresh, natural, cage free chickens a month. Yep, I held a chicken.

A Newsed Car?

We're thinking about buying a new car. This weekend was a good example of times when an SUV would just be much more convenient and useful.  We spent the 4th soaking up the booze sun at Lake McConaughy. It was at 100% for the first time in more than 10 year but more on that on a later post.

Josh's Subaru was great for the dirt roads and we were able to get it down to our beach campsite. The real problem was the lack of storage space. Had we been able to fill it to the top of a hatch we may have been able to fit Lisa back in our car so Shanna didn't have to drive to our house to drop Lisa off.  Oh well.

Of course our primary requirement for the new car would be it cannot be a HUGE gas guzzler. Now SUV and gas guzzler are basically one in the same but the new hybrids do open the options a bit.  We'll also be buying a used car. It just seems silly to buy a brand new car which loses it's value as soon as it's driven off the lot. Our top two contenders:

Toyota Highlander Hybrid

My Dad and Liz have a Highlander that they bough a while back and I really like it. I've heard it's like a minivan on stilts (Russell) but I don't care. It gets good mileage for an SUV and optional 4WD. I'm not really worried about the recall that happened this year. Most of them should have been fixed right now and if not, maybe we'd be able to get a screaming deal and then just get it fixed on our time.

Ford Escape Hybrid

This one gets even better gas mileage than the Highlander but it's still a Ford. I know they are have been working really hard to improve their quality but I still remember when Ford stood for Fix Or Repair Daily. 

Of course since my little Honda gets great gas mileage (awesome for my 81 miles/day commute) and it's worth basically nothing as a trade-in we'd be trading in Josh's car.  This would also mean Josh is the primary driver of the new one...boo...but on weekends and in bad weather it would be all mine.  This weekend we may venture out for a test drive to determine which we like better. Then we'll shop until we find the right one at the right price. There are about a million other things we could spend money on right now (hello air conditioner) but Josh's car is starting to wilt and we may as well trade it in while we can still profit.