So we waited over an hour (after being told 20 minutes) for the taxi to take us to our chosen dinner spot. Then the cheerful taxi driver started driving off in what I was sure was entirely the wrong direction–but what do I know, I don’t know anything about Redding.
A few minutes later the driver said, “Oh shit,” and began to redirect.
But we had to pull over several times for police cars to race by, with their sirens on, squealing around corners, and coming up on two wheels (seriously).
Then the police cars came back, even more of them this time, in hot pursuit of a pickup truck, which promptly ran a red light right in front of us. Everyone vanished into the sunset. (Mark and I later discussed the lack of wisdom involved in fleeing a dozen cop cars, and decided that by the time it gets to that point, so many bad decisions have already been made, that you’re not exactly talking about rational processes any more…)
So we eventually made it to dinner. And they were having a special–all bottles of wine, half off! Well, Mark doesn’t drink (much), but I asked if I ordered a bottle and drank half of it, could I take the rest with? They said sure!
After dinner, Mark said, “Isn’t that theater you looked up near here, and don’t we still have time to get to the Spiderman movie?” Why yes, I do believe so. We asked the waiter, who said, “Oh no, that’s WAY too far to walk, it’s like a mile!” A quick check of the iPhone assured us it was not quite a mile, so off we went, carrying the half-empty bottle of wine.
Upon approaching the theater, we realized, Huh, can’t bring this in there. And can’t leave it in the car, because, well, no car. So we threw ourselves on the mercy of the court (or, well, the food court maidens), who were happy to put it in their fridge, once they’d heard our sad story. (We added the part about the earthquake just for extra credit.)
And we saw the movie which was okay. I mean, fun, but you had to turn your story-thinking brain off.
And after the movie, it was quarter to midnight, and we called the taxi company. “We can be there in an hour,” they said.
Seriously? I don’t think so! (If a promise of 20 minutes yielded a wait of an hour, an hour promise would be…two and a half hours?) So another helpful check of the iPhone and we decided, Hell, let’s walk.
So that is why my beloved and I were walking down a deserted street in some random town in northern California after midnight with half a bottle of wine.
Nothing happened except that we had a lovely 45-minute walk, I have a few blisters from my sandals, and we saved a few bucks of taxi fare.
Now I am sipping some of this wine and trying to relax enough to get sleepy. The good news is, it’s only 77 degrees out there now. The forecast for tomorrow is 109. I sure hope we’re out of here long before that manifests… tomorrow we learn just what might be wrong with the car. Because of course there were no mechanics around by the time we got towed to the fix-it place.
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Earlier this year, Mark said he’d like to have more adventures. I reminded him of this tonight, during our walk back to the motel. He turned his face to the sky and cried, “I retract it! I take it all back!”