Travels with The Rayman

My blogging has come to a complete stop until now.  That’s because I’ve been working on my book and so it goes.  However, I must blog today because I have stories to make you laugh.

Yesterday we arrived back in Morro Bay from Portland (PDX).  A fun trip in many ways.  However, it seemed longer and a more tiring this year.  We are considering leaving a car in PDX and flying.  Just sayin.

The trouble follows us around like quills on a porcupine.  Did you know that porcupine quills grow back?  That they are actually hair?  With barbs?   That they have 30,000 of them?  You do not want to have an encounter with a porcupine.  

But I digress.

We had a lovely time visiting our friends, the Zells in Ashland, OR.  It was an arduous day on the a rainy road from PDX to Ashland.  Every truck on the earth was in our lane.  Spray from the trucks made it a miserable drive.  We limped in about 5 p.m. and enjoyed a great visit and great food.  

The next day we traveled to Williams to visit with brother John.  His older house looks new again with new paint, new varnish, new counters, new, new, new.  Wonderful job and I was able to see why my wild rug we sent him found it’s way back to Rugs.com.  Everything was white, gray, black.  

Then we completed the days journey to El Dorado Hills for a two day stay with George and Vicky.  It is no exaggeration when I tell you that their home should be featured in Sunset Magazine.  It was beautiful.  While there I got my eyes “refreshed” with permanent eye liner.  And we sipped on wine in Amador county.  And we played Mexican train.  And we caught up with them and their lives while keeping ours a complete secret!!  Just kidding.

 

The next day we took time to go to Roseville to visit our friends, Donna and Wally.  Donna took a tumble about a month or so ago and broke her right shoulder and left knee.  At the same time, on the same fall.  We wanted to visit and cheer her up.  It was a great visit that long overdue.  

Then it was on to San Francisco for a wonderful night, cioppino, and almost no tourists at Fisherman’s Wharf.  Then we drove around on our way home and took pictures of old hotels that my great, great uncle may have stayed in while he was studying medicine in San Francisco in 1900.  How do I know that?  Guess you’ll have to buy my book to find out.  Here is a tease.  As Rayman sort of double parked, I jumped out and took the picture.  Then a car emerged from the alley he was blocking, so he backed up and almost killed me.  I hit the car and said, “What the hell are you doing?”  He yelled, “I’m getting out of the way.”  In the meantime, a man walking down the sidewalk started laughing at us and said, “Can I bring my wife back there?”  I told him he was bad.  

 

Leaving the City we were astounded at the lack of traffic on a Friday.  Zoom, zoom.  We made it to San Jose Art Museum and treated ourselves to the Van Gogh exhibit.  But before we got in to see it, we had to extricate ourselves from the parking garage next door.  Could not find a way out so we walked up the ramp to the street.  Did the same in reverse when leaving.  Weird set up they have there.  Or, was it us?  I ask this because we had quite a time getting the car out of the garage.  

At this point of the story, let me reference you to one of our other times in France when we had a similar experience.

Here it is:  us in France, July 2012:

Well, we arrived. Late. But, nevertheless, an arrival. It is 2:50 a.m. and we’re enjoying a glass of wine and some chocolate before retiring. It was, after all, a fabulous trip here aside from the time that Mr. J snarled at me in a rottweiller-kind of snarl. And aside from the time that I screamed, “just pull over and look at the map” as we got more lost by the second in gay Paris!! And then there was the episode of trying to pay the machine for the use of the toll road. Imagine, if you can, Ray driving and pulling up to the the machine automatique to pay the toll for the short trip we took south of Paris to Orleans. It was like 11 euros. So, Ray put the ticket into the machine and the credit card into the slot marked carte or card…and the darn thing spit them both out when an impressive amount of velocity. So much force that they hit the ground. Well, Ray was parked too close to the machine and he couldn’t open the door. Temper started rising in the direct relationship to the frustration level. So, I hopped out of the Citron and ran around the front of the car. He was so close, I couldn’t retrieve the items. Of course there was a car behind us…waiting in the darkness of their car, no beeping, being mysteriously silent. So, I ran around the back on the car and crawled down the pick up the ticket and the credit card and then reinserted them. I can tell you that it was great relief on Ray’s part that my attempt was not more successful than his. So. desperate to free ourselves of more embarrassment, he fed a 50 euro into the machine. Well, you would have thought that you were at Las Vegas and had won the big grand slam. Euros just kept gushing and gushing. By this time, Ray was screaming something about, “these god damn euros just keep coming” as he heaved them by the handfuls into the car. Then he put the car into reserve, “god damn this car”, righted himself by putting it into forward and we pulled over to re-group.

Okay, so fast forward to yesterday.  With a bit of trouble we found the car exit.  We pulled up.  Rayman was driving.  To exit the parking, a ticket was needed.  Said ticket had to be inserted.  Rayman inserted it and then lost control of where it was or where it went.  He couldn’t find the ticket.  Then someone pulled up behind us.  We searched the front seat area.  No ticket.  Finally, I exited the car and hand signalled  the people behind us to go around.  They couldn’t because someone had pulled up behind them.  So, I went around the back of the car and found the ticket on the ground.  Okay.  Then I inserted it.  Then a cryptic messaged appeared on the screen of the ticket machine which essentially said, “we’re not done with you yet”.  So, I jammed the credit card in.  Another cryptic message…something about an error.  By this time, there was a line of traffic and people were honking at us.  OMG.  Flipping the card over, putting in the “other” way, something went right and the gate opened so I walked pass it while trying to look invisible.  Rayman yelled to get back in the car…I had left my door open.  At this point in time, people were shouting some vile…I may have heard, “old fool”.  Just sayin.

We made our escape intermittently mumbling and shouting at each other.  

With my ego in my shoes, we breezed down the freeway to King City where we stopped for coffee.  I used the facilities.  This store had a new fangled thing for wetting your hands with water, emitting soap, and drying your hands…all out of one piece of stainless steel…a bar about a 12-inches long.  There were two of them over a trough sink.  The guy, who was in his 40s, couldn’t figure it out.  I did figure it out.  He asked me if I had ever seen anything like it before.  “No”, I replied.  Left the area feeling better about myself.  

So, that was that.  Got home.  Ordered in pizza.  Died in bed.  In that order.