The Trek Home Begins

7/30
We started out in the morning with the intent to get to Kerrville by 5. This was not going to happen. Our fault, really. We stopped at a supermarket in Deming to suss out the ethnic food aisle for local Mexican. We left with two kinds of mole concentrate and green chili sauce (two different types). Glen also wanted to stop at a Mexican blanket outlet store in El Paso, which turned out to be a waste of time. Add to that rest stops, lunch, and gas refills (one in Ozona that involved conning us into driving all through town to the other side), and we arrived at the Hampton Inn, which was as always more than acceptable.
Dinner proved a thorny problem. It was later than usual, and we didn't want to hurry. There was a restaurant across the way in another hotel, but it was a bit overdone in decoration and had no prices on their menu. Come on! Even Bern's in Tampa has prices. Supercilious, we decided and EMPTY. We ended up at Cracker Barrel. The other end of the spectrum, but the food was good. The service was not, and the waitress (about 16) apologized with a long and convoluted story about dance camp and long hours. All this was said with no eye contact whatsoever on her part. I was tempted to tell her this was all a poor excuse, but we both cut her a break and didn't give her a hard time. We did leave her a small tip, but we didn't want the kid to lose her job, so we did not complain.