Some days on the road are like this one.

Nov. 4 – Harlingen, TX

From Austin, we arrived at our hotel in Harlingen at a quarter past three, about on schedule after a lunch stop in Bishop (where I first encountered the Iridescent Squawking Bird of southern Texas). Unfortunately, the staff had not been apprised of our arrival and keys were not yet made for our eleven rooms. That left us waiting about thirty minutes, which is valuable time lost for unpacking, napping, eating dinner and, more often than not, rearranging room assignments because they are double-booked or have not enough beds. I tried to connect to the wireless network, but it wouldn't have me. After half an hour on the phone with the help desk in Poland, I had gotten nowhere and it was time to leave for the venue. After work I tried again, and despite another half hour with Poland and an adapter from the front desk, I finally had to make the technological regression to television.

We'd been thrilled to find there was a Denny's immediately next to the hotel. Often, if there is any late night dining in the neighborhood, it's a considerable walk away across windswept suburban plains, so being able to have dinner before bed was a bonus. But breakfast would be another matter.

Our hotel was overrun by some kind of church outing group, and I think also a wedding party. At three in the morning a handful of people were causing some kind of ruckus, probably taking advantage of the hour gained back from daylight savings. (Why Harlingen needs to be saving daylight I don't know; the sidewalks are plenty bright already.) I'm sure it was one of these people who threw up on the sidewalk outside my room. Twice. Despite waking up to this sight, I had an appetite for breakfast. Yay, Denny's!

Nope. It was Sunday morning, and the neighborhood was even further overrun by Mexican shopping excursions celebrating the Day of the Dead, and some other crowd of folks wearing quasi-military uniforms, not to mention the AARP. All these various groups beat me to the punch and there was a forty-minute wait at Denny's by 10:00. That wouldn't do, since we were loading the bus at 10:45 to leave at 11:15 for Corpus Christi. I looked in the hotel lobby for the continental breakfast. If it had ever been there, it didn't look like anything I wanted any part of. Never mind; there was an IHOP three doors down, although since the first door was a Wal-Mart, the distance was about half a mile. Well, that was even worse: the crowd at Denny's probably comprised the overflow from IHOP. I guess McDonald's it is. And so it was. I ate a McMuffin. A bird squawked.

I made the walk back toward the hotel along the glaring pavement, overdressed for the sub-tropical humidity but thinking ahead to the bus air conditioning. I was accompanied by a carpet of fire ants and a din of Iridescent Squawking Birds, wishing I'd had more time at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Austin. Goodbye, Harlingen.

View Larger Map