Voices in the Night and the Value of a Valid ID

My sister turned 40 on the 10th. I figured now would be a good time to make a trek to see her new place (have not visited to their place in better than a decade). I left in the afternoon, figuring that I would drive 10 hours, get off the road around 0200 and then only have about 3 hours to drive on Friday. This did not happen.


I first stopped at a box-store to purchase a new camera. I have a bad habit of losing vital bits of kit just before I leave on a trip. I last used the camera (Nikon coolpix S3100) about 2 months ago. Somehow in the past 2 months I managed to misplace the usb - Nikon interface cable. There was no locally available cable, so I picked up a Panasonic Lumix DMC SZ02. Next, I hit up Lion's Choice for dinner and was heading West.
Miles passed without much incident until I got to the MO/OK border. As I was crossing this, I caught a conversation on the radio (ham) about the good old days in rodeo. This was a good 35-40 minute conversation. I listened to the whole thing. I have no idea who was talking. Per FCC regulations, amateurs are to give their call sign every 10 minutes and at the end of the conversation. This did not happen, not even once.
During the process of this, I managed to miss that I-44 became a tollway. I had no change on me and no idea where to get some. Fortunately, there was a service station just before the toll booth. I asked the guy at the service station told me that the toll would be 4 bucks and another 4 if I was going past Tulsa. I hit the ATM and got back on the road. What the clerk didn't tell me was that after you get off of this tollway, there is another tollway that only takes change.
About the time that I made the change between tollways, my gps also decided to start flaking out (this would plague me the rest of the trip). As I was futzing with it, I missed that there was a pull-off lane to pay in change and blew through the toll station in the 'PikePass' lane. Being the honest guy I am, I got off and tried to find my way back to the missed tollbooth thinking I would find someone on duty and be able to pay my debt. I spent a good 15 minutes trekking back to the previous entrance of the tollway. I failed, miserably. Finally, I accepted that I would not be able to make payment and just decided to get back on the highway only to realize that it was an exact change bucket. There were 2 other tollpoints and I was running out of change so I hopped off the highway again and found a service station and asked how many more tollbooths I had. I had just passed the last one, but had to pay to get back on the turnpike.
It was now 0200 and I wasn't really tired. I knew that I could either rent a room and toss and turn in a room for 3-5 hours and pass out for a couple of hours before they kicked me out, or I could finish the drive to my sister's place. I opted for this and made it in about 0800. I will put down the rest of this day tomorrow. Below, are the images for the pitstops.