I woke up, showered, loaded the car up, checked out, and headed out. But first I took a picture of the CAR-MART sign next door. Somewhere in Texas, I saw a sign for Subway and decided to try there for lunch. But the gas station that Subway was supposedly in was shut down! So I got a burger to go from the Dairy Queen next door.
The drive through Arkansas was uneventful. After several hours, I reached Memphis, drove to the Holiday Inn Select and parked in the lot facing outward so other congoers could see my car Steve's smiling face.
Unfortunately, the hotel did something dumb! They put me in room 330, which is right behind the bar. I quickly
figured out that every time I came out of my room, I would be inhaling thick clouds of cigarette smoke!
So I asked to be moved to another nonsmoking room. The clerk misunderstood at first, tapped around a bit on
her computer, and told me "330 is a nonsmoking room, sir." I started strangling her till she put me in
room 361, on the opposite side of the lobby, and coincidentally the very same room I had the previous year!
I was satisfied with that, so I moved my stuff in.
While I was moving my stuff in, I noticed that certain parts of the walls in the event space hallway had been
freshly painted. I decided not to use that hallway while carrying in all my stuff, and I hoped it would
be dry by the time the con started. (It was.)
After moving in, I went out to Steak 'n Shake and had a double steakburger (gotta have a double; their patties are so thin!) and a Cookies 'n Cream shake for dessert. Then I stopped at a nearby convenience store to see if they had non-concentrated orange juice in single-serving bottles. They did, yaay! So I bought enough for the entire rest of the trip.
