Taking it easy

February 20, 2010 – Cross Country Trip – Day 3

After 8 hours of much-needed sleep, we started the day bright-eyed and busy tailed. Or rather, I started that way. Poor Cicely was fighting off the beginnings of a cold. I think the 16-hour day where she did 10 hours of driving did her in. I offered to take the first shift of driving.

We headed off to Dallas. Somewhere en route the piece of crap Magellan Roadmate 1440 I purchased at Best Buy decided to stop working. When I say stopped working, I mean total malfunction. The damn thing would not map ANY address in the Fort Worth/Dallas area. We’d put in an address or do a search and it would tell us that the GPS needed to be restarted. Of course, this would happen when we are in the first major metropolitan city on this trip, a time where we needed the GPS the most. I called Magellan Tech Support for assistance. They told me I needed to download an update. I explained that I was on the road. They told me that I could send it in for repairs. I asked if I could exchange it at another Best Buy. They explained that it would probably also need to be updated. At that point, I gave the customer service rep an earful. That poor pathetic thing had no idea what hit her.

Thankfully, we used my trusty iPhone as plan B. As part of our taking it easy plan, we decided to meet @KyraTX from Twitter at the Grand Luxe Cafe in the Galleria Dallas.

After lunch, we did a little browsing around the Galleria.

Even though we had dessert, we headed off to get some cupcakes. We went to Society Bakery, which was highly recommended by many Dallas locals.

Because of the malfunctioning GPS, we got there right as they closed. I tried to park the car and Cicely got to take pictures of the storefront. She even got to wave at the people closing shop inside.

To console ourselves from our failed cupcake purchase, we went for the next best thing… Outlet Shopping! There was even a Best Buy. I was able to exchange the terrible Magellan for the incredible and reliable TomTom XL 340s. The difference in the two gadgets was surprising.

After some retail therapy, we headed to Shreveport, Louisiana. Cicely’s cold was worsening. So, I happily drove. I even tortured her with some off-key singing. I make even the worse American Idol contestants sound gifted. A secret vice of mine is 90s Slow Jams. I know the lyrics to most Jodeci songs. When they come on, I will sing them as badly as I want.

For Cicely’s sake, we made it to Shreveport in fair amount of time. I’m not sure her eardrums could have handle anymore of my bad singing.   We tried to get Popeye’s Fried Chicken because supposedly it’s really good in Louisiana. I can neither confirm nor deny this since they were closed. It was a failure kind of day. At least our room was nice.

I was so starved that I settled for a dinner of a Spicy Chicken Sandwich from Wendy’s and bourbon, which turned out to be the best way to end Day Three.  It really was a laid-back day. We only drove 6 hours and covered 350 miles.