Road Trip: Up The Middle Of The Country

Day 1: Saturday, May 04, 2024 - Travel to Houston, TX, and Austin, TX

Day's statistics:
Weather: 88°, overcast
Steps: Steve 8,954; Linda 6,264
Travel: ~1,654 miles

For quite a few of our trips, the first day is basically just a travel day.
This trip is just a little different as we not only flew to Houston, but we toured a little bit, and then drove to Austin (which is, technically, travel...).
Any flight we wanted to take out of PHL to Austin went through Houston anyway. Linda wanted me to at least see Houston as she spent some time there when working - even seeing the Rodeo Parade.

So first up, we awoke at 6:30, showered, finished packing the car - I put the two checked bags in the trunk along with the camera, the preivous night - and then we headed out at 7:02. We were already a half-hour ahead of schedule but it is better to be early than late, especially when trying to catch a flight.
We dropped the party tent off at church on the way out as well so it could be used for the Penticost Sunday celebration at church since we weren't going to be there ourselves.
We grabbed a couple breakfast sandwiches, and some coffee, at Dunkin' on the way to the airport since it was so early and we didn't want to deal with trying to coordinate making something at home - most of our perishables were already consumed - and then we would have had to wash the dishes too.

We had a reservation at Express Park South, and arrived at 8:13 and boarded the shuttle.
We were dropped off at Terminal B, and were at gate B14 by 8:55, having sailed through security with our TSA preCheck.
So far, our flight was on time.

They started calling groups to board at 10:10, and our group was called by 10:14, and were sitting by 10:16.
At 10:29, we started moving. The plane just backed-up. Does a plane make that beeping noise while it is backing up? If it was, We couldn't hear it over the roar of the engines...
After sitting for six minutes, we started moving again. Then we sat, and started moving again. And sat - we were probably making our way to the runway.
At 10:44 we took off.
Shortly after takeoff, the plane banked sharply. And of course the camera focused on the guy in the seat.

At 11:20 we had snack service - Biscoff cookies and coffee.

We played a few hand of Pinocle too. And yes, I had four aces, four kings, AND a royal flush.

There were a lot of puffy clouds.


We started our decent into Houston at 1:35.







It isn't every flight that one gets to see another plane in sync with their flight.

And off in the distance was, assumedly, Houston. Yes, it was overcast.

Touchdown was at 1:08 local time (we gained an hour going into the Central time zone).
It took ten whole minutes to taxi to the gate. While we did, we had to wait for cross traffic to clear before we proceeded.

We made our way to baggage claim.


Waited at the carousel for our luggage. At the next carousel over, I spied our luggage passing by. Obviously the signage was wrong - so I ran over to that carousel and grabbed our first bag - and the second was not far behind.
Near the carousel was this woman entertaining a toddler.

We left the baggage claim, and headed to the Avis car rental desk, via a curtosy shuttle from the terminal.
After getting the car keys, we made our way to the garage and found our Toyota Corolla. All four of our bags - the two larger checked bags, my carry-on plus, and Linda's carry on - as well as the camera, all fit in the trunk.

We got in and made the necesssary adjustments - such as to the mirrors, and seat settings - and headed toward the exit.
And then waited.
And waited.
And waited...
While we were waiting, we turned off the engine, and played with the car infotainment system. We tried to sync the phone to the car, which required an app download. Linda downloaded the app, and we started the process. After entering the VIN, we were informed by the app that "Cannot sync to a fleet [rental] car".
Eventaully I called the 800 number to see if they had any info about the issue, and they did not. Eventually an agent walked down the rather lengthy queue of cars trying to leave and informed all of us that the exit gate wasn't functioning. After we sat for probably a half-hour, someone had an inovative way to get people out - they put carpets and or floor mats over the exit spikes, and allowed people to slowly roll over them to exit. It was a little slow, but better than not moving at all.
We plugged our next location into the map app on the phone, and headed out.
Near the exit of the airport, we saw a sculpture and an interesting welcome sign.

As we drove around the city, we found that there were a LOT of flags all over - not that there is anything wrong with that.
Typically there were both Texas and US flags together, though not always.

As we approached the city, we also saw an interesting church (or so we think it was a church).

At this point, it was way past lunch time - so we made our way to our first "real meal" of our trip.
We wanted to find the Museum of Fine Arts first, then go to lunch near it - rather than potentially drive to lunch in the opposite direction and get that much further away.
We found the museum, and then headed to the restaurant, Velvet Taco. We drove to the location, and found an empty storefront (it turns out that we entered the wrong address in GPS as researching it as this is typed, where we were was not exact what we see on-line).
So we searched for another place to eat. As we were only supposed to be in Houston for one meal, the list of locations I made was small since I usually have three or four lunch locations, AND three or four dinner locations.
Anyway, we googled a location on the spot, drove around the corner, down a couple blocks, and found Goode Co. Barbeque.


One grabs a tray (unless it is to-go), a beverage, orders their entree, sides, pays, then takes their order to a table.



I did some quick math and it was more economical for me to order a dinner - which included two sides - and give one to Linda, than it was for both of us to order a side.
Linda ordered the Czech sausage sandwich on a roll, the barbeque sauce was on the side.

I ordered the half-chicken (they were small chickens, and it wasn't quite as much as it might look like since there were bones too) with cole slaw (for Linda, though I tried it) and Austin baked beans (which had apple chunks, pepper, onion, and beans).


It was a little dark inside, and it was oddly decorated.

We left the restaurant and headed back to the museum.
When we arrived, we started hunting for a place to park. Then we realized that it was already about 4:30, the museum closes at 6:00, we were up early this morning, mentally it was an hour later than it really was, and we had a nearly three hour drive to Austin.
So on the spot we decided to not stop at the museum and head out to Austin.
Along the way, we saw some sights that included some oil pumps, and livestock.

We stopped by the store to pick up some supplies, incluing cough drops, , and a 40 bottle case of water. Admittedly we should have gotten a much smaller case... (we had 10 bottles left over at the end of the trip.)
Also, while we travel with a set of various USB charging cables, this was our first experience with a vehicle that required a USB-C (the small plug) cable, and not the not-that-old USB-A cable that we took with us. So we got one of those too.

Our first hotel / motel of the trip was a Best Western.
The motel was set back a little from the main road, and it was perpendicular to it so it wasn't so easy to spot. As Linda read the Google Maps directions, "here it comes, here it comes, there it goes."
Fortunately it was a loop road - by name and description - and we were able to pull into the second entrance and drive around to the hotel.
We arrived about 8:25, checked in, and made our way to the room.

As we learned on our roadtrip last year (2023), we only had to bring in our carry-on suitcases since we packed at least three days worth of clothes in them so I don't have to drag the large suitcases in every night.
This is one of only three hotels / motels - of the 19 nights - that we were staying two nights, all three of those on a weekend.
We got situated, relaxed a bit, washed up, and went to sleep.

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