Decatur, remembering to share

Mama and I got back from Decatur about 9 p.m. last night. We had a pretty good visit to the area but the whole trip turned out to be more hurried than I had hoped. We drove over on Monday and I worked half a day in the office, mostly visiting with the people that have been assigned to me. Maybe it is because I am new but it did not seem nearly as relaxed as the office in Borger.


After work on Monday Mama picked me up and we went to Costco. (She had spent the day shopping in Denton.) We were headed to Fort Worth to the Costco we had gone to before but my iPhone found a Costco supposedly closer. So we plugged it into the Garmin and followed it cross country to Lakeside, TX. We found the store after some searching and got all the things that were on Mama’s list and we still had some time left in the evening so we decided to go to the outlet malls in nearby Grapevine, TX. Going there had been one of my goals for the trip.

When we asked directions, the Garmin was not cooperating or did not recognize the address, all we got were sneering sort of “Good luck!” answers. Turns out, they were really close. Construction was miserable, it was after dark, and the roads were poorly marked. We were told to look for a particular exit which we never found and though I am sure were within two or three miles of the shops we never found them. Finally, after an hour or so, Mama punched our hotel address into the Garmin and we let it guide us back to Decatur – before I got too frustrated.

The next morning at the office I looked up the directions to the Outlet Mall and found out that the exit we were told to look for was not even on the highway we were on. It was the third on a list of three turns we would have needed to make to get to the mall. It never ceases to amaze me how poorly most people give directions. Even in Decatur, the ladies at the office knew only one was to get to the restaurant where they had suggested we have lunch. They insisted that I follow them rather than tell me how to get there. It was less than three minutes away,

Mama and I, when we first got to Decatur on Monday afternoon (five hours from Amarillo) ate lunch at Chili’s since it is very near the office. For some reason we each ordered the same burger and after the order was placed we thought we should probably have split the meal. When the burgers arrived we knew we should have split the meal. They were huge and neither of us was able to finish, but neither of us left enough to save for later. In other words, we both ate too much!

The hotel room we had for the night was exceptional! When we got to the hotel, prior to going to Costco, we were told they were out of rooms with king beds and we didn’t need two queen beds so the receptionist offered us a king suite for the price of a regular room. It was the nicest room we have had in many years. It was on the third floor with a view of the area that stretched out for twenty miles or more. The room was open and large, so much so that the king size bed look small by comparison. I told Mama it was a real shame we were only going to be there for one night.

It was a busy two days and the next two days are going to be busy here in Amarillo as we get ready for the girls and Grandma and Grandpa to move here.