Haime is with me. As you might remember, Haime likes his ruts, (he prefers "routines" but let's be honest, they are ruts). He is a happy camper when he is able to follow the same schedule for the same day of the week, every week. I, on the other hand, prefer spontaneity. If I have something planned and something more fun/interesting comes along, I'm there. Anyway, Haime and I are on a vacation.
Let' s start at the beginning. In about February, I learned that Bob, Candee's hubby, was hosting a party to commemorate and celebrate Candee's retirement after 39 years in education in California. I didn't hesitate and told them that I would be there! Well, knowing how Haime likes his ruts, I decided he needed to have plenty of time to process this information, since I wanted him to travel with me. Finally after several months of prodding, he agreed...(uh, oh).
We planned our itinerary, which included visits with some of his high school buddies, time visiting his sons and his grandchildren, lunch with some of his other relatives and, of course, my getting to spend time with my "sista-from-another-mista" and her hubby for a few days before her party.Our plan, which we successfully carried out, included leaving the house at 4:00 AM in Haime's corvette. We were determined to drive to Phoenix where we had a hotel reserved, then we'd get an early start and drive to our next hotel in Newport Beach. Well, you know the saying, "the best laid men of mice and men sometimes go array." Our trip was going along very well. We were making great time and luckily, neither of us felt the need to leave the other buried somewhere in the desert...this is NO SMALL MATTER!
Just as we were getting ready to cross from New Mexico into Arizona, Haime decided that he needed an ice cream cone. So, like a good chauffeur should, I pulled over at a McDonald's so he could get his cone. Then, Haime decided that he needed to get back into the driver's seat. Soon after we left the Micky-D's lot, the "check engine" light came on...uh-oh. Then, the cruise-control wouldn't work. As we were basically in the middle of no where, we decided to wait until we got to the "rest stop/welcome to Arizona" center before stopping. We were hopeful that the by turning off the engine, letting it "rest" for a few minutes, then restarting it, the computer would "reset" itself and we'd be on our way...no such luck!
When we restarted the Vette and were going to pull away from the curb, the car would not cooperate...it did not recognize reverse...#@#$%!@#**!!! Fortunately, Haime had not pulled so close to the curb that he could not "drive" around and pull away. So, we were soon on the way west again. While he was driving, (and sweating and panicking and worrying we'd be stranded in the desert where a band of gypsy-terrorist-outlaws would find us and stake us to ant mounds after they poured honey all over us...or something like that); I was on my phone looking for the nearest Chevrolet dealership so we could utilize their service department. Suddenly, Haime exclaimed: THE LIGHT WENT OFF! (I nearly dropped my phone!)
Well, we decided that the prudent thing to do would be to have the car checked out anyway, so we drove to the advertised dealership in Willcox. What a joke! The "dealership" was actually only a used car lot with a building that was more of a "shed" than a sales office and of course, no service department. We hit the road again, this time to Tucson. On the way, I phoned the service department, explained our dilemma and told them that we'd be there in about an hour. 
When we arrived, we were greeted by the wonderful service manager with whom we had spoken on the phone. He took time to explain the process of diagnosing, repairing (as needed) and the time line for getting us started then on our way. He directed us to a hotel "right around the corner" and told us that he'd see us in the morning. We went to our hotel, "freshened up" and walked across the street to a restaurant. While the name of the restaurant wasn't actually the "Roadkill Café," they did have "Roadkill" as a menu choice, no, I'm not kidding. Yes, of course, I ordered it, RARE! As I told Haime, today, the road tried it's best to get us but we came out victorious! After dinner, (and a couple of well-deserved martinis), we went back to our hotel and set the alarm for 5:30 so we could be back at the dealership by 6:30. As we looked back on our day, we had to agree that it was certainly not a dull, boring road trip to that point. Yep, travelling with Haime is ALWAYS interesting.
Stay tuned for more of our adventure west...
TTFN,
Lois
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