Home To Maggie

At this humongous event at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, we work 4 days, first day is about 12 hours of setting up our store, the next 3 days are 5am to midnight days, except the final day we are done about 3am instead of midnight, as long as things go according to plan, this year they did. We have three teams there plus several of the bosses from Cedar Hill join us for this one, they are also the ones who relieve us throughout the days for little meal breaks that they provide for us. It’s grueling but we enjoy it.

This year we took an extra day to hang out in Indy afterwards, are bodies needed more rest and we were avoiding an even colder snap with snow. Our stay at Baymont in Plainfield was great, comfy bed, spacious room, great shower head. We were on the third floor which is the executive level, weird but pretty cool at the same time, until we realized meant people hang out there. One of the nights we got back to our room we had to ask folks to be quiet, it’s posted quiet at 10pm and it was past midnight so they immediately kept quiet. At least we think they did, it’s possible we just passed out and no longer heard them.

When we began our trek back to Cedar Hill we drove about 260 miles the first day to the Hollywood Casino & Hotel in Maryland Heights, Missouri for a little playtime and lots of rest and relaxation. We had a very comfortable king size bed in the Sunset Tower with a terrible view, a nice walk in shower with strong water pressure. A large TV screen, fridge, coffee maker, blow dryer, and an iron with a board. Customer service was outstanding with everyone going out of their way to assure we had everything we needed. Loved the uncarpeted floors, they seem to be cleaner without the rugs.

Our next day was just about 300 miles to Quapaw, Oklahoma, where on our path was frigid temps and snow everywhere, not one of our best travel days. Seeing all that white crap, knowing the temps are way below freezing and any water on the roads were frozen. We made it safely to our destination at the Downstream Casino & Resort for one night but we were emotionally drained. The room was spacious with a marvelous walk in shower and a comfortable king size bed. The view was rooftops filled with snow, not that great. It was clean and customer service was excellent.

Our next day drive was a little over 300 miles to Winstar Casino & Resort in Thackerville, Oklahoma, where we stayed one night. We were here several years ago in our motorhome and they had a nice RV Park, so we thought we would see what the hotel was like. The casino is HUGE, too huge for our us, and the room was just okay, the only standout thing was the mints on the bedside table.

Our last night in a hotel was spent in a Best Western Plus in Forest Hill, Texas. We were close but needed that extra time so we could get our stuff situated, plus we have been non stop so we needed a rest and my brand new IPad died so we took it to Verizon and they told me it needed to be replaced and we needed to take it to an Apple Store, so we set the appointment for 10 the next morning.

Our day to pick up Maggie did not go according to any of our plans…

Our plan…drive 30 miles pick up Maggie and MayB…pick up tow dolly then drive to RV Park by noon and get all unpacked and situated…NOT.

How our day actually went…Our 10am appointment didn’t get us out until noon and without a solution. They agreed it needed to be replaced but could not verify the serial number because it would not power up…duh…so it would take a week or so to get it back to us but needed an address to send it, which we are in full travel mode and had no idea where we would be. To make matters worse, they then claimed they didn’t even have a replacement at that store. We chose to take it to another Apple Store somewhere down the road.

Drove 30 miles to drop off the truck and trailer and things went extremely well picking up Maggie and MayB, once reconnecting they both started up without any issues.  But then from there things got so much worse…Picking up our rented tow dolly was a fiasco, they had the incorrect address on our contract so we stood in line for almost an hour just to be told they did not have a tow dolly and sent us to yet another place that didn’t have one either, then we finally got a call from the place that had our contract wondering where we were, BUT when we got there, they were not an authorized dealer so they could not and would not instruct us at all. This was our first time with a tow dolly and we wanted instructions, so…we needed to go back to the original place we stopped at for wiring and instructions. 

By the time we got to the RV Park, the sun was setting, we were exhausted and drained so we opted to stay two nights. Usually that wouldn’t be an issue because we are in relax mode for about a month but unfortunately our fridge really is dead so last week we made the only available appointment left in Tucson for Friday so we are pressed which meant our Monday travel would be over 300 miles, but the rest day was worth it. It was nice to be able to drive together again with the rental tow dolly which made the over 300 miles to Odessa not so bad. Looking forward to getting to Tucson to get our fridge fixed and pick up our own tow dolly…life is good!