Home stretch...

We're in the thriving metropolis of Tulsa, Oklahoma tonight... what a happening place THIS is... (please note the obvious sarcasm...) Okay, to be honest, I really don't like this city. At least not in the dark. And I'm not sure if it's because the navigation system in the car brought us through what must've been the absolute WORST part of town to get to this hotel... or if it's because the hotel is about a block and a half from the previously-mentioned "worst" part of town... or if it's because we were accosted on our walk from the parking garage to the hotel by a woman asking for money... or if it's because the door to our hotel room sort of looks like it's made of plywood and was possibly the final exam project of a seventh-grade shop student. I don't know. They all seem like valid explanations. Not a big Tulsa fan at the moment. Maybe it'll seem nicer in the sunlight...

I was sad to leave Chicago this morning, even though it rained the entire time we were there -- it's amazing how happy and cheery a few well-placed Christmas lights can make a cloudy, dreary city block look. (I don't even think Tulsa has any Christmas lights... at least not in THIS part of town... Oh wait -- I stand corrected. I just looked out the window and found ONE building with a string of red and green lights around the top...) And the Pancake House breakfasts and daily Starbucks/Seattle's Best/Caribou Coffee runs certainly didn't hurt, either. Not to mention dessert at Ghirardelli. My mean old dad text messaged me a picture of a big Ghirardelli sundae earlier this evening -- apparently they went back for one last dessert before they have to fly home tomorrow.

And lest anyone think I'm being unfair for calling my dad "old" (I don't think anyone would dispute the "mean" label -- because let's face it, it IS mean to send someone a Ghirardelli picture when they can't get to Ghirardelli. :)) I submit exhibit A:

This was a sign near Eric's apartment, and mom and dad just sort of gravitated toward it... we took lots of pictures. :)

Anyway, tomorrow we head back to Austin, where we're hoping to be home in time for Christmas Eve dinner at Rick's parents' house. (And on a side note, Rick just made fun of me because I'm obsessively weird about hotel bedspreads -- he'd moved the clothes I'm planning to wear tomorrow off the suitcase and set them on the bedspread, and I asked him if he could put them back on the suitcase. After giving me some kind of nonchalant, "eventually" sort of response, I just went and moved them myself. I can't stand to have anything touching the hotel bedspread. They don't WASH those things. Five million people have done who-knows-what on that bedspread, and I don't want to lay on it, or sit on it, or let my clothes touch it... I had to perform this sort of OCD Bedspread Removal Ceremony to knock it onto the floor... I think the threat has been neutralized...)

Off to bed now... hopefully I won't think about that icky bedspread lurking on the floor...