My oldest daughter turned 15 last week so we decided to take her out Saturday night for her birthday. After talking about it with her for what seemed like hours we finally decided to head to Grapevine Mills and then play it by ear once we got there. Jennifer went shopping that morning in Wichita Falls (almost an hour away) and so when she got home we were going to head out to the mall. i don't know where she found the energy to go shopping in three different stores and then walk around the mall a month after a major surgery but she did. Grapevine Mills is a huge outlet mall that is about an hour and a half (in good traffic) from our tiny town here in north Texas.
Around 5:00 we headed down there and didn't hit any major traffic problems but when we were driving down highway 121 in front of DFW airport we ran into huge construction nightmare and before we could do anything about it we were headed to the toll gates. Now i feel like i should explain that i live in a very rural area and don't have a lot of experience with such things as major airports and even toll booths. We pulled up to the attendant and i had no idea what to do. The guy just looks at me with a smile on his face like i'm sure he has done for thousands of drivers since he took that job and all i could do was just stare back and mutter "what, what do i do?" He says "take ticket" and i look down and a small ticket is sticking out of a little dispenser. i take the ticket and he nods to me as the gate opens and we enter the airport. at this point i'm freaking out a little because i have no idea what to expect. i wasn't prepared for any tolls and don't have any cash on me. Jen noticed that there is a sign that says "$2 for pass through". Now i might have limited knowledge of toll booths in the area but i do remember that recently they removed all of the area's "Cash" booths in favor of the toll tag/bill booths that if you travel through without a toll tag they take a picture of your licence plate and mail you a bill. i was completely surprised to see an attendant and have to take a ticket not realizing that this was not a typical toll booth but the airport's own booth. The whole time my GPS is very confused and kept recalculating. After going all the way to the first terminal and making a crazy u-turn that included a parking lot, we headed back out of the airport and toward the toll booth. i noticed that the ticket said "Present this ticket when leaving the airport" so i knew that i might have a serious problem getting out of the airport not having any cash on me. We drive up to the ticket window and the attendant reaches for my ticket and starts typing into his computer. The seconds passed through like an hour and suddenly he looks back at me, nods, smiles, and the gate opens. i don't understand what happened but we didn't have to pay a thing for our little u-turn.
Now we were headed north out of the airport, toward our goal, and on track according to the GPS, so we thought. Do to the construction for some reason we ended up headed east when we should be headed north. Our GPS realizes this and has us exit and make a u-turn. So now we're headed back toward the construction zone in front of the airport hoping that this time we can find the right exit to head north to the mall. When we get back to the construction it is so confusing and their are no signs to be seen so when i took what i thought was the right exit it was of course, wrong. i'll bet you can guess where we were headed. Yep. Back to the airport! By this point there was no way i was going to go back through the ticket booth and make a u-turn in a parking lot again so we started looking desperately for some kind of exit or u-turn before we get to the gate. We're in the far right lane approaching the gate and i spot a u-turn crossover all the way on the left. i put my blinker on, looked over my shoulder, and cut across six lanes to make it to the crossover. We make the u-turn and head out of the airport yet again but this time i find the right lane and finally we head in the right direction.
Success is ours! We finally get to the mall around 6:30 and other than having to wait for a table at the Rainforest Cafe and wait in line later on to ride go carts at Speed Zone, it was a good trip and more importantly Christin had a blast.
Happy 15th birthday Christin, I love you!
Qeelin
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