I Got to Visit Flatonia, TX

On Monday I drove a bus load of students to Discovery Camp in Columbus, TX. I already told you about the day...it was a good one, but long. Well, today, it was time to pick them up. I borrowed a van and left at 6:30am to head to Columbus to pick up the bus and drive the kids back. Amanda wanted to go because she LOVES being with the youth group. Leaving that early in the morning, Amanda Kay was not awake. Thursday night, I asked Brooke to lay out some clothes for Amanda and I packed her a few toys and the laptop for watching movies. When it was time to go, I loaded up Amanda's stuff, grabbed her and grabbed her pillow. I put her in the van and she slept while I drove and listened to my book on CD, The Shark Mutiny. Around 9:30am, Amanda woke up and we were ready for breakfast. As we were getting ready to walk into McDonalds, I realized what I had forgotten to bring...shoes for Amanda! A little further down the road we had to make a quick stop at Wal-Mart and pick up flip flops.

So we arrived in Columbus while it was lightly raining after the thunderstorm had blown through. It was about noon and everybody was ready to leave. I hopped out of the van and into the bus, and off we went. Fortunately, nobody had eaten lunch so we stopped at McDonalds (once again) for lunch. Because our trip down wore through the wires that connected the U-Haul trailer lights to the bus, I took a new wiring kit with me and fixed that while everybody ate. I had time to down my burger and fries and then we were back on the road again.

Heading from Columbus to Arlington, one is supposed to take Hwy. 71 West to 35 North to 20 East. Right near Columbus, Hwy. 71 crosses over Hwy. 10, and if a driver is not careful, it is easy to get off of 71 onto 10. I don't know...it must have been 30 minutes later that I was paying attention enough to see the Hwy. 10 sign. The good news was, I was going west, but the bad news..I was on Hwy. 10 and not 71. We ended up on the outskirts of a town called Flatonia, TX. I have no idea what Flatonia is know for (if it is even "known"), but I bet you can't say you've been there. Me, my daughter, 28 students and two adult leaders can say we have. We got to do all of that for the small price of a 25-or-so minute detour!

We had to stop in Austin for gas before heading into SLOW traffic for another 20-25 minutes and then we made pretty good time back to Arlington. Parents were waiting for us when we arrived so everybody unloaded and headed home. I took the U-Haul back, vacuumed out and filled up the van we borrowed and got back in the house around 9:00 PM. It was another busy and full day...plus I got to visit Flatonia, TX.

-Rob