Dustin Barbour

It’s Saturday morning around 10am and here I sit in the passenger seat of my truck as Chris and I are making our way out of Houston and headed to Oklahoma City for a night with some of my friends there. Ahead on the right there’s a Cracker Barrel and we’re stopping for some breakfast. I can’t wait. You see, I actually know where this Cracker Barrel is. I know this Cracker Barrel will be visible from the highway. This is going to be quite a departure from the shenanigans of last night. What follows below is a memory dump of those events in a greatly condensed format. You should also read Chris’s post on the same subject.

1pm At the San Antonio airport in the so-called “cellphone lot” waiting on Chris to call. I’m sitting in the sun on the side of my truck’s bed eating a peanut butter sandwich. No jelly, no bananas, no pickles. Bread, peanut butter. There’s a La Quinta in Houston awaiting our arrival. It’s a glorious day.

1:30pm I pick Chris up, get on the 410 Loop and start off towards Houston. I’ve got a whole truck-load of stuff and Chris has one backpack. WTF?

2-4pm We have a standard conversation about women, money, training, family, etc.

4pm We’re on I-10 eastbound approaching I-45 and are looking for the hotel. I’m pretty sure the one I booked was right here at this interchange. It should be visible from the road, right? No luck, pull into a McD’s and start looking for internet access.

4:30pm Back on to the 45 into downtown Houston with the belief that the hotel is there. Rush hour on a Friday. Fuck.

5pm I start calling La Quintas trying to track down the reservation.

5:30pm My phone runs out of power leaving me without any functional navigation devices. (My TomTom is broken.) Chris doesn’t have a data plan.

6pm I get off the highway and start driving around the older portions of downtown Houston. We start looking for somewhere ANYWHERE to plug into a wall or get some internet access. My laptop has about an hour of juice left.

6:10pm We’re sitting at intersection waiting for a green light. I start hearing the unmistakable ding-dong of the train signal indicating that a train is coming and the lever on the gate is coming down. Chris, by the way, hears nothing. I look to my right and, holy shit!, I’m right underneath the gate and the light is still red. It’s going to come down right on top of the cab. Snap decision to run the light so I gas it. Just as i start rolling, the light turns green. I’m the only one who makes it through the light.

6:20pm I pull into another McD’s parking lot looking for wireless signal. No luck. Doesn’t ANYONE have an unsecured network anymore?! While in the parking lot, bum/transient black guy walks up starts talking jive. WTF are you saying to me? He says he knows where the concert venue is at. I trade four Federal Reserve Notes in exchange for him getting the hell away from my truck window. His breath is ridiculous. In retrospect, should have taken a picture of this dude. Chris is worried that he’s going to steal one of the storage bins out of the bed of my truck.

6:30pm We leave McD’s following this bums “directions” (National Lampoon’s Vacation-style and completely wrong) and see a T-Mobile store! I park, walk in, get an outlet to plug my phone into and start calling La Quintas again. The lady on phone checks all of the La Quintas near the downtown area… no dustin barbour. WTF?! I use Google Maps to find the hotel I believe I’m booked at. Pulling out of parking lot and I am frustrated as all hell. I go to buckle my seatbelt. Fucking thing is locked out. Click, click, click, click. I pulled on it about six times before it finally released. Chris is doing the “laughing so hard there’s no sound at all” thing in the passenger’s seat.

6:45pm Frustrated and pissed off, I’m driving madly around downtown to get to this hotel. Turns out that the address Google gave me was on a railroad track. No hotel in sight. WTF? “Unverified listing” LOL. KILL ME.

7pm Finally, I give up on finding this place and decide to book another hotel room… at another La Quinta. I call Jeannie at La Quinta Cy Fair. She’s very nice, accommodating and even called me back from her personal cell phone when there was a minor problem with the reservation. She attempted to give me directions but was unfamiliar with downtown Houston. No big. I know Google can find this place.

7:10pm I start driving, battery dies again. OK. I call the hotel back from Chris’s phone and get Sasha. She says their cross streets are the I-59 and Weslayan. Cool. I saw that on the map and can get there by memory. Guaranteed. I start driving, find the hotel, realize that the addresses don’t match. Ugh. Wrong hotel.

7:30pm From the hotel parking lot, we FINALLY get onto a wireless network and go through my browsing history. Oh shit… did i actually book at a Best Western?! I call the BW I think I might be booked at, but again no reservation. Good. I’m not that big of a fuck up. However, further down in browsing history is Baymont Inns and Suites. I recognize the picture of the place… call them. Yep. I have a room waiting! Hallelujah.

7:40pm With the crisis averted, we decide to just go to the concert venue instead of the hotel first as we had originally planned. We’ll catch food on the way. We stop at a place called Prince’s for what turned out to be damn delicious burgers. As we walk in, I notice that there are electrical outlets at each of the booths. Awesome! “Chris, go grab the phone and the laptop and I’ll order the food. We’ll charge while we eat.”

8pm Dinner was delicious, a well-deserved meal of which I ate every last scrap. We depart prince’s with directions to the concert in hand and arrive there no problem.

9pm The opening band Angelspit goes on. The chick is hot. Their show kinda sucks, but that’s why they’re opening.

10pm KMFDM! It’s all that I had hoped the concert would be. Small moshpit with wet floor. People slipping EVERYWHERE. I was standing next to a dude who appeared to have been burned pretty good in a fire. No ears, whacked-out toupe. I keep worrying that he’s gonna catch me staring at him. The show goes on until midnight. GLORIOUS! Note: Chris is not an active concert-goer. Not even a single head bob.

12:15am: We leave the concert venue, using Google Maps to locate and get directions to the hotel. I start driving and miss the first turn… no big, recalculate directions. Houston sucks.

12:55am: We finally get over to where the hotel is. Well, at least where it’s supposed to be. WTF, Google? That’s twice you’ve failed me… in one night. At this point I’m questioning my decision to buy a phone that’s integrated so tightly with Google. I call the hotel and get manual directions. “We’re on the feeder to the 45 behind a Mexican restaurant and a furniture store.”

1:10am: We finally find the hotel. Their signs are unlit and the place is located about 100 yards off of the road. Not easy to find until you’re right up on it. (That’s what she said?)

1:15am: One hour after leaving the concert, I walk into the lobby that is remarkably identical to the one at the La Quinta I stayed at in San Antonio. I immediately understand what happened. I did indeed book the room at laquinta.com. As it turns out, my hotel, Baymont Inns and Suites, is owned by La Quinta. Wow.

What a night. And that backup reservation we had made with Jeannie… She was more than accommodating and canceled it for us without charging the normal fee. I should send her a card.