Finally made it to Fort Worth this afternoon, but not without incident. Somewhere east of Paris I unavoidably struck a truck tire belt either coming off of a truck in front of me or passing right underneath it. Either way, I couldn’t swerve in either direction and couldn’t break quickly enough to dodge so it slammed into the front of my car at highway speeds, effectively tearing off my front license plate and part of the plastic covering on the underside of my car. I’m grateful my family is safe, and it’s a minor miracle that none of my tires lost air. We made it to our hotel without any further drama and I’ll defer that costly repair until my return to Richmond.
Thankfully we arrived early enough to start taking in the touristy wonder of the Stockyards. I can’t help feeling like it’s cowboy cosplay, but it’s charming and the kids love it. We had a helluva steak dinner, some terrific ice cream, and finally some pleasant time to unwind here in our room. We have all day tomorrow to explore the rest of the Stockyards before we cap it off with a rodeo in the evening.
Meanwhile, the forecast for Monday’s eclipse is still kinda terrible. At the very least it seems like it’ll be mostly cloudy. We’re still making our way to Clarksville (more on the way home than the original plan of Ennis) the morning of to take our chances, but we’re prepared to make an earlier departure if it looks bad so we have time for a more relaxed dinner in Memphis on the way back.
Fingers crossed!