Happy anniversary?

Saturday, 7:15 pm

There's one thing they don't tell you: When airbags go off, they stink.

Well, as anniversary weekends go, ours pretty much sucked. We drove up to a motel just past Waxahachie, in a town called DeSoto. Checked in, freshened up, changed clothes then headed for Dallas. We killed a couple of hours at the Galleria, then headed to Texas De Brazil for much carnivorous goodness. Dinner was wonderful. We splurged on a piece of chocolate mousse cake to go – we never did find out if it was good.

It just started to rain as we left the restaurant. We got maybe half a block from the restaurant when brake lights bloomed ahead of me. Apparently, some guy decided he needed to turn left in a place where there was no left turn. Next thing I knew, I was car #4 in a nice five car bumper car game, my airbags blew up and smashed my windshield, and my to-go cake is smooshed all over my car.

Four hours and a $50 cab ride later, we were finally back at our motel in DeSoto with no transportation. Sleep was not all that forthcoming that night.

Did I mention the rain? Torrential downpours, thunder and lightning, and tornado watches. We were scheduled to go to Scarborough Faire the next day.

Saturday we picked up the rental car (a Ford Taurus), had breakfast and headed for an extremely muddy Scarborough Faire. Wow – the mud and sludge was several inches thick. We enjoyed the faire, but it really wasn't what we had been expecting. By the time we left, we were pretty much soaked through, and very muddy. Faire parking is on grass. Can you see where I'm going here? Yep. Stuck. We were most certainly not the only ones, either. Rob and this other guy got our car pushed out, then Rob helped push out another one.

As I type this (won't be able to post until we get home on Sunday) we're relaxing in the hotel room, watching a Beverly Hills Cop movie (not sure which one) on cable tv. Both of us are pretty much dead tired. I've got some real pretty bruises, and I think I managed to jam my left hand pretty good. Rob's got some weird welt we think was caused by the passenger air bag. My poor little car is in all probability totaled. But all in all, we seem to be fine. It could have been so much worse.

=============
Sunday, 3:20 pm

Home again finally. This morning when we left the motel, we discovered yet another tidbit to add to the joyous experience that was this weekend: apparently there's some sort of leak in the rental car. The passenger side floor had a nice little puddle of standing water. Guess that explained the smell we couldn't quite identify. We stopped at a Kroger and picked up some munchies and a roll of paper towels to soak up as much of the water as we could. What's funny about this, is this is the second car they gave us. The first one was a Dodge Stratus, and seemed to be quite nice. We were all set to go, but I noticed that the brake light on the dash stayed on, even though the parking brake was not engaged. So, back inside we went to get the car swapped out. That was Saturday, and naturally there was yet another thunderstorm and torrents of rain Saturday night.

We slept somewhat better last night, though it was interrupted by an alarm clock going off at midnight in the next room. A room that was unoccupied. After a call to the front desk it took about 20 minutes for someone to go in there to shut it off. We opted out of showers this morning – the water from the shower and the bathroom faucet smelled strongly of mildew.

The ride home was blessedly uneventful. I've discovered that cruise control is the neatest thing since chocolate ice cream. My poor car is someplace in Dallas; I don't know what the adjuster is going to say. I can't imagine the cost of fixing is going to be less than it's worth. We're talking two airbags, the smashed windshield and the frame is probably somewhat tweaked. I'm not sure exactly what we're going to do – a car payment is not gonna happen right now.

Oh well. Being home is good. Our comfy bed will be most welcome tonight, and tomorrow we'll spring the rest of the family from confinement. I guess it was a memorable anniversary.