{"id":1127,"date":"2012-02-01T22:35:29","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T04:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2012-02-01T22:35:29","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T04:35:29","slug":"texas-day-1-where-the-snowbirds-fly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2012\/02\/texas-day-1-where-the-snowbirds-fly\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Day 1: Where the snowbirds fly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or: In which I find I am the only person in America without a smartphone
\nOr: I am NOT tooling around south-central Texas in a minivan!<\/em><\/p>\n

Austin, Texas, Jan. 23 \u2014<\/strong> I wanted to be sure I had plenty of time to get to the Omaha airport, with the bad weather conditions of the morning. It was a good thing I did. I counted six vehicles in the ditch and two in shoulders before I got to the US 169 exit. Then, near the Adair rest area, another car, a commercial van on its side, and a semi north of the westbound lanes facing east!<\/p>\n

In part because I had yet to see it after construction, I took I-80 into Nebraska and I-480 around, doubling back to the Wendy’s just inside the Iowa border. There I was in for a shock with a $1.69 junior bacon cheeseburger!<\/p>\n

The GPS directed me to the 14th Street exit for the airport instead of Dodge, which was surprising, but I wasn’t listening anyway. This would be a recurring theme.<\/p>\n

I was flying Southwest out of Omaha because I saved $50 for not paying a baggage fee, and tickets were cheaper in general. Plus, this way, my stop in Phoenix would be “blizzard insurance” should winter weather strike Omaha in a week. (It wouldn’t.)<\/p>\n

The plane took off into Iowa and the last thing I saw before the plane disappeared above the clouds were the I-680 bridges.<\/p>\n

After landing in Phoenix, I had to switch terminals. Although it was a short layover, I appreciated Southwest’s plug outlets at multiple places.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAbout two hours in Mountain Time, but not my shortest ever in that time zone.<\/em><\/p>\n

Arrival in Austin was shortly before 9. The instant after wheels down, people fired up their phones. Every single one of them was an iPhone or Android. Not even a BlackBerry to be seen.<\/p>\n

There were five people ahead of me at the Hertz counter. When I checked in, there were no full-size cars left, despite my reservation from October<\/em>. “You can have a Camaro for $10 more a day, or you can have a minivan or Traverse.” I was not pleased. When he said I could trade it in the next day, I felt better. Fortunately, I had already arranged to be in a hotel nearby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or: In which I find I am the only person in America without a smartphone Or: I am NOT tooling around south-central Texas in a minivan! Austin, Texas, Jan. 23 \u2014 I wanted to be sure I had plenty of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trip-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1129,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions\/1129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}