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Amarillo and Aunt Murrel

Amarillo Travel Blog › entry 5 of 16 › view all entries

For our vacation this year, expense was a factor, plus it was my wife's Great Aunt Murrel's 85th birthday. She likely won't have a lot more, so we decided to head to Amarillo to celebrate with her. And, as we had never been to Oklahoma, we decided to trek there. Oklahoma City was great and Fort Sill was an experience I won't soon forget

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Amarillo and Aunt Murrel

July 11, 2009

Jackie, Margo, and Aunt Murrel

After getting through the traffic circle in Boise City, we were now just two hours from Amarillo. Our ETA was 2:15 PM CDT. We had left Brighton at 5:30 AM, MDT. That worked out to nearly 8 hours of driving and an hour time change. Fun stuff.

We checked into our hotel, the TraveLodge West, and settled in quickly. Margo and I had a room, and Jackie and Patty had their own. We basically just dropped off the luggage and climbed back into the car. Aunt Murrel and family had a barbeque planned for us when we arrived, and we didn’t want to keep them waiting. Besides, despite our snacks, we were starting to get hungry.

It should have been a ten minute drive to Aunt Murrel’s, but our GPS insisted on taking us through Amarillo, instead of jumping on I-40.

Aunt Murrel

We followed it, just this once to see if maybe this way was faster. It wasn’t, but it got us there, and we were soon walking though the door.

We were greeted enthusiastically by everyone, and after a few “How was the drive?” and “Are you hungry?” we settled into some chairs for some visiting. Aunt Murrel asked if they had been treating me right, referring to Margo and Patty. I told her that they had been mean to be the whole time. She said she would be speaking to them. She is a pistol. The last time we saw Aunt Murrel was 4 years ago, and her mind was sharp as a tack. She hadn’t lost much.

Not long after sitting down, Margo presented Aunt Murrel with her late birthday present. We were supposed to have been in Texas a month ago, when Aunt Murrel actually turned 85. But, because of Mom’s condition we postponed the trip for four weeks.

Blue Jay

But the tardiness of her present did not diminish her joy in getting it. She more than thrilled to get the finished copy of the book on her side of the family.

I brought two copies, which was all that I had time to print, and everyone had a chance to look through them. Aunt Murrel took her copy to her bedroom, so she could keep reading it that evening, and because she didn’t want it to get borrowed. I was happy to see how much she and everyone else were enjoying it.

We were soon eating and visiting. We got caught up on the latest news on the Amarillo branch of the family, and we passed along the news from Colorado. The hours flew by quickly and before we knew it, it was dark. It had been a long day, and 10 PM seemed like the right time to go back to the hotel. We promised to be back in the morning, but warned them not to expect us for breakfast. Margo and I were definitely sleeping in.