Well, the seed for a road trip with Sylvia started months ago when I realized that George Strait was coming to Austin for a show. When I tried to buy tickets, they were sold out except for seats in the far balcony, so I started looking for other places where George Strait might have a concert. Lo and behold, Lincoln, Nebraska popped up. After finding it on the map and realizing it would take about 13-14 hours to drive there, the wheels started turning and out came the idea for our road trip. So much for tangential thinking!

The Buc-ees logo is there because it became one of our favorite places to stop along the road to see George Strait.

Our first stop was in Dallas. We stayed at a beautiful suite at the Westin Inn in downtown Dallas. Above are some pictures taken of Sylvia as we walked around the downtown area. The picture in the middle shows her with a bronze statue of Rosa Parks who started a quiet revolution when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.

The Westin Hotel was just blocks from the John F. Kennedy museum. This museum is housed in the 6th floor book depository at Dealey Plaza where President Kennedy was shot by Oswald on November 22, 1963. The third picture shows the window from which he took the shot and the fifth picture is a model of the fateful shooting that took place. It was emotional to relive these moments in history. The museum first opened in 1989 and has had millions of visitors since. Of note, we visited the gift shop and bought a couple of magnets and a book as well as a beautiful long sleeve blouse that came in handy for Sylvia for the cold weather we experienced once we got to Lincoln, Nebraska.

After visiting the museum, we walked to an upscale restaurant, the Y.O. Ranch Steakhouse, and had some deliciously cooked steaks accompanied by some gouda mac-n-cheese and creamed spinach. This all went down with a couple of cocktails and was perhaps the most special dinner of the trip.

Before heading back to the hotel for the evening, we read about a Giant Eyeball sculpture on display a few blocks from our hotel. Naturally, we just had to see it. Sure enough, there was a 30-foot tall eyeball plopped down in the middle of downtown Dallas. The eye is the work of Chicago-based artist, Tony Tasset, who designed the piece after his own eyeball. Is it cool or creepy? You decide.

The next morning, we slept in until about 10:30 a.m. (Sylvia slept in, I was up around 7 a.m.), but then packed up and headed to our next destination -- Oklahoma City. As it turned out, there happened to be an Art Fair going on in BiCentennial Park in downtown OKC and so we stopped there for a couple of hours to check it out.

There were large varieties of art work from paintings to sculptures, many of them costing thousands of dollars and clearly out of our price range. We did manage to buy some prints, ice cream dots and cinnamon roasted pecans. The third picture above shows Sylvia at a stand where the jewelery was made out of coins. She got an unusual necklace made from a quarter.

We did stop for lunch in Gainsville, Texas before heading to our second stay at a charming bed and breakfast called the TWO HEARTS INN. They had a variety of rooms so I booked the newlywed suite. What the heck, right? It was amazing how often Sylvia was referred to as "your wife" during the trip and there was never any reason to correct anyone. But the suite was beautiful.

Below are pictures of us at the TWO HEARTS INN. The breakfast the next morning was amazing! I won't tell you what happened between the time we got to our room and breakfast the next morning. I'll just say that Sylvia attacked me relentlessly. I'm still traumatized to this day.

Finally, on the third day of the road trip, we made it to our destination, Lincoln, Nebraska.


We immediately drove to our hotel, the Graduate Lincoln. It was picked for it's proximity to the PINNACLE BANK ARENA where George Strait was playing that night. Below are some pictures of the eclectic decor that the hotel offered. As hard as I tried, I could not get the remote to work on that darn TV in our room. One of the pictures shows the arena from our bedroom window and it proved to be an easy walk from our hotel.

Then there was the concert. We arrived in our room only about 2 hours before the concert started so it was a quick change and off we went. But things went smoothly and we had no problems getting into the arena and getting to our seats. Prior to sitting down, we hit the merchandise table and below, Sylvia is wearing one of the shirts bought at the concert. (Of note: In a rather surprising move, she pulled off her shirt in front of me, GOD and the crowd without hesitation to put this shirt on. Bold! Oh, well! I guess all those people will never see us again anyway. We did get a few stares and a couple of chuckles, though. You can see her previous shirt in the last photo.)



The middle picture shows George Strait playing his guitar. It shows just how close we were to the stage.

After the concert, it was fairly late and we hadn't eaten anything for supper, but riding around Lincoln, we found this great soup and sandwich place called Pickleman's Gourmet Cafe. The sandwiches were delicious. I would have enjoyed my meatball sandwich more if Sylvia hadn't stolen half of it. She took one bite and after realizing how good it was -- traded her sandwich for it -- totally against my will. (Kidding, I offered. Her's was delicious also.)


The next day, we drove to Shenandoah, Iowa. This was an improptu addition to our road trip. As it turned out, Sylvia had been in touch with Michael Donnelly on Facebook. Michael married her BFF from high school, Julia Calderon. Unfortunately, Julia had recently passed away, but Michael invited us to visit since we were so close to his home on our trip.

He showed us his new home and town and treated us to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. One of the sights there is the EVERLY BROTHERS CHILDHOOD HOME which had been turned into a small museum. It was a pleasant way to spend the last day in the area. The small owl pictured in the middle belonged to Julia and was graciously given to Sylvia as a keepsake to remember her by.


The next day, we got up at about 7 a.m. (extremely early by Sylvia's standards), and headed out to the great city of Thackerville, Oklahoma. Sylvia knew we were going to Thackerville. What she didn't know was that the Winstar casino was there. Along the way, we ran into a small shop that made 'FRIED PIES'. Now, I don't know about you, but when I see a sign that says fried pies, I'm gonna stop! Do I have to tell you that they were delicious? I don't think so! I'm getting a coronary just thinking about them.

We got in rather late, but decided to wander down into the casino and try our luck. We were going back and forth, losing more than winning, when about $400 in, we hit a machine for $540. At $140 over our losses, we considered ourselves lucky and quit at that point splitting the winnings at $70 apiece. Not bad for about an hour's work.

This is us celebrating our winnings with a shot of Patron tequila. I also had two lemon drop martinis and Sylvia had a bourbon and coke. We left feeling good with the money in our pockets.

I told Sylvia at the beginning of the trip that by the end of the road trip we either will completely hate each other and break up or be more in love and stay together. I guess we survived the gauntlet 'cuz we're still in love.

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