Deb and I just got home. We left around 9:30 Saturday morning and stopped for the night just past Little Rock, Arkansas about 9PM. Traffic around Austin and on up to Dallas was incredibly busy on a Saturday morning and we had several places of slow going.
We left the hotel this morning around 8AM and traffic was better until we got to the north side of Nashville - there was a long backup and we were able to take an exit and take a half hour detour around the problem. We got home at 6PM....the data in the car said we traveled 1,278 miles in a bit less than 21 hours.....that is a 60mph average which isn't bad considering the slow areas. (The driving time only includes the time the car was running....and none of the fuel or food stops......we had to get fuel every 200 miles so we had 6 fuel stops).
The riding and fellowship were great!
One "non-ride" event that Deb and I discovered was some of the history of the Texas Rangers. There was a PBS documentary on a DVD.
http://www.lovingtruthbooks.com/V2/Res.aspx?xr=t&Sku=2188Deb and I were staying in Center point and the cemetery has more Texas Rangers buried there than anywhere else. The documentary told amazing stories of the lawmen, and how they would often take on a foe who outnumbered by huge odds....and come out the victors. They did point out that they methods they used would not be deemed acceptable by the standards of today - but it was the "Wild West" and the rangers had to resort to tough tactics if they wanted to survive and create order and protect the law abiding citizen.
We also learned about the US trying out Camels as pack animals just before the Civil War. The outpost/fort was called Camp Verde and it was just a few miles from Center Point.