We woke up to lightening in the distance. After a shower, I ran down to the gas station and got some adequate convenience store coffee. On my way back to the hotel it was barely spitting rain. Checking the radar, it looked like most of the rain was to the north without much movement to the south. The one exception was a finger of rain that might impede our way.
We decided against any rain gear since it was warm and the rain didn't appear to significantly affect US-287. This, of course, was a mistake. I'm not sure how many times we have learned the lesson to put on rain gear when rain is in the area, or how many more times we have to relearn this.
Because of the heavy cloud cover, it was still quite dark as we left. The rain spit a bit more at us for the first half hour and then we had full on rain for another half hour. We sort-of dried out after that, but at the first gas stop things were again looking very ominous, as judged by the sky and the radar on our phones. Since we had mostly dried out, we put on our rain gear. This was the right thing to do since for the next several hours we were in and out of rain. Sometimes it was light, but many times it was very heavy. The temperatures fluctuated too, from muggy humid gross to cool clammy. For a few brief times, it rained so hard it was difficult to see. Luckily, traffic was never an issue except around Wichita Falls (and it was raining moderately hard for our entire time through that city).
Eventually we made it down to the wealthy suburbs/exurbs north of Dallas. There was a town there we wanted to drive through for some arbitrary and slightly sophomoric reasons and we did; we also took several pictures in the area for posterity. We had driven hundreds of extra miles for this, without it we would not have had many of the past few days adventures so perhaps the destination or reason are not really all that important.
From there, we headed up US-75 and head a great lunch at Abby's in Howe, Texas. We originally saw a sign for Don's Butcher Shop which was also a restaurant and promised more smoked meats, but it was very closed. Luckily, Abby's was right across the street and the food was great.
We headed up US-75 a bit more to Sherman, stopping at the Quality Inn. It is interesting how different locations will have different default conditions for hotels. I would only be able to recommend our hotel in Amarillo to precisely the right kind of person. The Quality Inn in Sherman was great. Compared to the previous night it was outstanding! The room was huge and everything worked. It was clean without smelling overly perfumed. The super awesome staff suggested I could park my motorcycle right outside the double doors of the hotel so it would be covered, lighted, and in view of people all night. I happily took advantage of this.
Restaurants were a bit thin in the area so we went around the corner to a small place called Camino Viejo which sits in an old truck stop. We ordered and I surfed the restaurant on my phone (always dangerous while sitting in the booth). It had a number of reviews that said something to the effect of: Don't let the exterior fool you, the food is great. The reviews were right as the food was really good - fresh guac and great tacos. What was funny is the guy sitting behind me was loud-talking on his cell phone and sounded exactly like the dude at 1-minute in this video clip.
We grabbed some ice cream at the gas station to eat in the hotel room before turning in, knowing it is time to head home.
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