On Wednesday, I got back from Boston. My brother-in-law, in Texas, was getting married on Friday evening. Rather than fly some more (it's more expensive), we decided to drive the almost-exactly 1000 miles to Texas on Thursday. It's about 14 hours of driving - less to the suburb we were going to for the wedding.

Hoo boy!

So we rolled out the door at 6:21am and arrived at the hotel at like 10:15pm. We stopped several times. The drive was fairly uneventful except that, from Oklahoma to the final destination, the car was not really capable of beating back the 95+ heat plus driving directly into the sun. The AC cooled us off, sure, but it was still quite warm. Quite. We also stopped several times for iced coffee along the way - need caffeine, need cold.

When we arrived in Texas, of course, we were obligated by law to convert all of our currency to gold and acquire a gun.

We hit Dallas at around 6 or something and I was hit by how ugly and terrible the sprawl is. I've been there before on business, of course, but there's no getting around it. The constant admonition of the GPS to "keep left!" as we passed through town struck as us heresy.

Once at the hotel, we were sharing a room with the wife's youngest brother and sister. [FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

Anyway, there are seven total kids, ranging in age from 18 to somewhere in the 30s, the one getting married is the most "normal" of the lot and has also managed to be the most independent from all the rest. The youngest ones - the college-age ones - really seem to, uh, need to be more independent of their mother but have little choice in the matter at the moment. The younger brother has fled to TAXACHUSETTS (why would anybody ever leave Texas? it's sad how far they've gone, given that liberty was STARTED there) and it seems, after some discussion with me, that he may at least be able to get out of his mother having any sort of involvement with health care, given that I pointed out it seems he should be eligible for Medicaid. The mother, she's very into "natural" stuff, is anti-vaccine, and takes it quite personally when the people she cares for aren't. This sometimes has consequences, like when people go to college and need shots.

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

The wedding was pretty all right: wedding itself was fairly minimal and traditional, though we arrived quite early for pictures that happened 1.5 hours after we arrived. The car ride was not much cooler than the 100 degree temperatures outdoors. I should not have gotten dressed in advance of the drive. FAMILY DRAMA was avoided by avoiding the rest of the family until pictures. The reception was fine. I'm pretty sure even the bread had meat in it. This was fine for me, but certain younger siblings were kind of hungry. Their fault for being in Texas. There was a photo booth with a variety of hats, including a rather, uh, orientalist Chinese-style hat, so while waiting in line, I kind of hid the hat. However, it made an appearance later, so I destroyed it and hid the remains.

I also made a pact with the guy the mother-in-law is dating that we'd dance the next time we're at some shindig since neither of us dances. Seems like a nice guy, much more sane than [FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED], though he's into Deepak Chopra stuff.

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

Anyway, on Saturday, after some [FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED], we took the little brother to the airport so he could fly back to the prison that is MA (they probably only let their citizens leave for a short period of time). It also became apparent that I was dying of a cold. And then it turned out that the flight got delayed and the connecting flight would be missed and the next one is at 6am, so the brother returned. Thanks Obamacare.

On Sunday, we were going to go to some Greek church, but I was still dying and the wifing unit was incapable of being awake. C'est la vie. So we sat around all day with me dying and stuff. Then we had dinner with some friend of wifing unit's. I was a little better by the evening.

Now, here's the epic part: we were driving back from down by NASA/Nassau all the way to $SOMEPLACE_FAR_NORTH. So, what time do we have to leave in order to beat traffic? We got out the door at 5:40 and it seemed to work well. By 7:15 we were past the Big Dead White Guy statue (Sam Houston Statue). There were a couple points where we slowed down, but nothing too bad.

One lesson we learned in Dallas: in rural areas, nearly every exit has a gas station and a McDonald's, and in urban areas, it's all civilization, but in the ring around a city, there may be a dead spot. We were going to switch drivers so I would drive through Dallas (she did it on the way down and it was time to switch anyway), so we were like, eh, there should be something at this exit, let's go. First sign we see: DON'T PICK PEOPLE UP: PRISON AREA. Or something to that effect. Get back on the highway, next exit, GPS seems to say there's something there: desolate urban industrial area, nothing there. Screw it, we're switching in a parking lot, at least it's not a prison.

When we got to Kansas, we started to get a little loopy, but it's also the home stretch. However, we kind of got a second wind once it got dark. We rolled back into town at like 11:15 pm. Part of the difference is that we started further south this time, we also stopped a little longer.

It's good to be home.

Conclusion: don't mess with Texas.

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].

[FAMILY DRAMA REDACTED].