Day 3: On to Dallas and a snowstorm

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Woke up in the creepiest hostel I have ever stayed at and got dressed in the dark. I left the hostel at around 5:30AM and I will never return to that particular hostel.

I drove on the highway for awhile before stopping at a Denny's for breakfast. This would be my only meal until I reach Dallas in the evening. I usually skip lunch on vacation and load up at breakfast to compensate. I also loaded up on caffeine pills at this point to keep me awake on the road. I will advise people to very careful with caffeine pills because they are addictive. They should be only used for emergency situations.

Drive to Dallas was uneventful but I enjoyed looking at the billboard advertisements on the highway. The Americans advertise so much better on the highway than Canadians do. I most liked the advertisements near Branson Missouri. They advertise the world's largest gift shop and the various casinos in Branson. I remember someone told me once that Branson is a cheesier version of Las Vegas. I wanted to get to Dallas by the evening so I didn't stop there.

I was making good time through Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma when it hit. I was approaching the Texas border with Oklahoma when Google maps gives me a major alert. I was driving right into an ice storm and I hit the storm shortly thereafter. Traffic was sliding all over the road. I had good winter tires so I was holding up better than the Americans on the road. Traffic was slowing down but it was moving until another alert popped up indicating a major accident just occurred. I followed the advise and turned off the highway into a town called Canadian by the Canadian River (irony). The old highways were tough to drive on and I was making slow progress. The ice storm was causing havoc on my car and my windshield wipers were frozen solid and I periodically had to stop to shatter the ice off them. I finally got back on the I75 S and the speed improved.

I passed into Texas and I approached Dallas Fort Worth which is a very spread out city and has a lot of highways running through it. The roads improved but other people's driving did not. I almost was sideswiped by other drivers who did not check there blind spots. I was still alert so I was able to switch lanes quickly to avoid accidents. I promised myself if I did not get into an accident this trip it would be a success. My GPS was leading me to my hostel for the night called Wild West Backpackers. Unfortunately google maps was confused and led me to another Wild West in downtown Texas which was a cowboy themed costume shop. After some adjusting I got new directions to the hostel which was in Irving. I parked in the driveway and called the number on the door and got the code to get in. This hostel was a big improvement over the last one because it had actual people there. I did notice this hostel had no staff on site as well and it had the disadvantage of being way out on the suburbs. I suspect Dallas has some kind of regulation banning these types places in the city.

I was hungry so I went out with 2 of the people who were staying at the hostel Salira and Max. They had both been at the hostel for awhile so they recommended a taco place nearby. The tacos were quite good even thought it was a place attached to a convenience store. We ate our meal back the hostel and I got to know them a bit. Salira was German and was working in Connecticut being a nanny to an American family. This was her first vacation since coming to the USA. She had just gotten back from Austin that night after being in Dallas for a few days. Max was a Russian IT person and had been staying in Texas for a few weeks now. He was working in the USA as an IT technician. We chatted a bit about IT work and we gave some IT advise to Salira specifically on how to speed up her netbook. I was waiting on a callback from another friend in Dallas before I planned my day tomorrow. I honestly could have used a break and with the ice storm tomorrow it would probably be a good idea not to venture too far out.

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