Oklahoma City Bound

 Once again, Aleah had a softball tournament in the Oklahoma City area - Jill and Aleah were driving out for it and asked if I would go again and I decideded sure, why not?  It's always fun to spend time with your daughter and granddaughter, especially on a road trip!

Glenn took me down to Co. Springs where we met Jill and Aleah at this crappy gas station - oh my!!  There was construction all over and really not a great place to meet but we got my stuff loaded and headed out!  A quick stop in Limon for gas and Aleah wanted something from Taco Bell so we went over there - Jill and I decided to just eat lunch from our ice chests so I went to the back of the van to fix it while Jill went in with Aleah - I opened the back of her van and my suitcase was leaning against the door and promply fell out and hit my shin bone - BAD!!!  Oh my gosh it hurt - so you can bet I packed it more carefully once I got lunch made for the road!

And we're off to Salina,KS for the night to spend it with Joleen!

We got into Joleen's about 6:00pm - the drive was fine but it always feels good to get out of the car!  The girls took a tour of Joleen's house and we were all happy we each had our own room and bed!!  Joleen has a new dog which is a handful for her - she's a Boston terrier mix but was found on the streets and went to the pound - she loves to jump on you and as most people know, I'm NOT a dog lover!!  After a while she finally left me alone but would soon come back and jump!!  

We had a nice dinner and just visited till bedtime - the next morning Becca came over to the house and it was SO fun to see her - Jill and her hadn't seen each other in a very long time!

Then we all headed out for coffee and enjoyed visiting!

I made up a 4th of July basket for Joleen and she loved it!

Then it was time to hit the road!!  It was only 3 hours till we got to the town of Cushing where our hotel was - but along the way we got on the turnpike and check out the speed limit!!  We were flying!!

Our hotel was a Holiday Inn Express and very nice - with a couch in our suite, it made for a lot of room and we quickly unpacked and grabbed food out of the ice chest as Aleah was heading to a World Series game with some of the players!

Aleah had a great time at the game - Jill and I went out to a local Mexican restaurant to eat - the food was delicious but our raspberry margarita that we split was even better - YUM!  I should have take a picture of it!!!

The Holiday Inn has a nice breakfast bar - plenty to choose from for everyone and Aleah and I LOVED the fact they had warm cinnamon rolls EVERY DAY!!!  They went excellent with a cup of coffee!!  I tend to get up earlier than Jill so I would sneak out of the room and walk for a while and then just wait in the breakfast area till Jill came down - worked out great!!

Next day the games started - and it was HOT!!!!  Luckily the field they played on all 3 days was in a small town about 25 minutes away - the road we took was in the "country" so it was a nice drive!  There were 4 fields in the complex and lots of seating under a roof on each one - but because it was so hot, the hard chairs got sticky and hot so we would go between them and our camp chairs!

The girls played 2 games that day and unfortunately lost both - bummer!

There was a covered picnic area so we went over there for lunch - luckily there was a nice breeze that day but between the heat and the humidity, we were sure hot!

After the games all the girls were told by their coach to pick up fast food and take it back to the hotel so we could all eat together! We had looked earlier at a place to do this so had our order all ready to call in on the drive back to our hotel - it's always a little more difficult with Jill being gluten free but she was just getting a club salad with no croutons so we thought that would work!  Jill ran into get the order (which took forever!!) and I told Aleah in the car that I bet they screwed up her salad and had to redo it!!  But about then she came out and I'm thinking in my head we should check the order but I didn't follow through on it!  We got back to the hotel, opened up our boxes and sure enough Jill's was WRONG!!  They gave her a regular salad with ceasar dressing AND croutons on top - no meat, eggs or veggies!!!  OMG!!  So she had to get back into the car and drive back to the place for them to redo it - what a hassle!!

The softball team stayed after we all ate and decorated ball caps - Jill and I escaped to our hotel room to shower and relax........

To Be Cont'd.....