They Pursued It With Forks and Hope
So during a weak moment yesterday, Jon allowed me to drive us all home from Hermosillo.
We had gone up there to collect Rebecca from the airport and to check on getting Annie a passport. We had left around five in the morning and Jon had driven the whole way to Hermosillo in Mike’s car so it was understandable that he’d be tired from keeping track of all of us, waking up so early and being careful not to wreck Mike’s car. Because we’d have a lot to explain to Mike if we wrecked his car.
We had done everything we had gone to Hermosillo to do and were heading back home when we stopped at a gas station so Sarah could get a coconut with chamoy and Annie went and bought Jon some coffee. While Annie was inside, I told Jon I’d drive. He looked at me through the rearview mirror and said, “I just might let you do that.”
In order to make sure he didn’t change his mind I got out of the car and walked around to the driver’s side door and waited for Jon to get out. Annie came back outside during this time and I told her what was going on. In order to disguise the extreme fear showing on her face she said, “No fair!” Or something like that.
But Annie got in and Jon got in and Sarah got in the passenger’s side. Rebecca was already sitting in the back and didn’t appear to be scared or anything. I quickly figured out how to adjust the seat and then started to pull out when Jon reminded me to put my seatbelt on. We were just about to pull out onto the highway when Jon said again, “This is nothing against you, Liz, but would you mind if we had a word of prayer before we left?” I continued to drive but told them that no, that wouldn’t be a problem. So Jon prayed and then Annie said she wanted to pray but she said this in jest I suppose and ended up not praying.
For the first two minutes all things went very well. Then Jon told me that I should move into the right lane because apparently the left lane is reserved for people who are passing which was news to me. So I started to pull over and everyone started screaming. From out of nowhere this blue car was speeding past us on the right side and I almost ran into them. So I resisted the urge to change lanes for awhile and everyone encouraged me in this decision.
A few miles more down the road everyone apparently got tired of my exciting driving style which is that I’ll change the speed every other second or so, going fast or slow depending on what my attention is focused on at the moment. So Jon attempted to explain cruise control which I didn’t want to implement at the moment but Sarah forced the issue by reaching across and turning it on anyway. So then we were cruising at seventy miles an hour and I didn’t know how to get out of it. Jon said to just tap on the breaks so I did and we slowed way down and then sped up again. Later on in the drive I managed to figure out how to use cruise control to my advantage and for an extended period of time we were cruising at a good eighty-five miles an hour. But this would be several more miles down the road.
Things settled down a bit after the cruise control incident and Sarah put a CD in so everyone started calming down and things got quieter after everyone’s hearts stopped beating so hard. We stopped at a gas station during this peaceful interval and when I pulled back onto the highway there was a bit of stress because Jon had to direct me to go left and I had momentarily forgotten which direction left was but we managed to make the road we needed and so all was good. I was a bit panicked though. I managed to calm down and, during a long, straight, empty stretch of road I built up speed until we were going 100 miles an hour. Everyone expressed extreme distaste at this action though and so I slowed down again.
Everything went smoothly from there on out until we came into Obregón. There is a road before driving into the city that has seven or eight speed bumps so everyone has to slow way down and be accosted by random people selling bread and chairs and cows and such. We managed to not buy anything although Sarah said if there were any strawberries she would have bought some. Probably to go with the coconut she had bought at the gas station two stops ago. She hadn’t finished it, probably because she was getting extremely car sick. I can’t imagine why.
It was during this time that everyone says we almost got killed three times. Don’t believe them. The man on the bridge will live and he won’t be walking down highways again, that blue Lumina won’t be passing any other cars on the highway for a long time and I won’t go so fast next to semi-trucks around curves again. Don’t worry. It was a learning experience that will not be easily forgotten by all parties involved. Although I think my passengers learned a different lesson than I did.
The last thing that happened was truly unique and would only manage to happen to us at this time. We were twenty miles away from home and suddenly we were attacked by a herd of bees. We won in the end, but the bees were splattered all over the windshield. Little dots of bee guts all over the place. It was disgusting. Sarah screamed when it happened. In order to solve the problem I turned the windshield wipers on but the only thing this accomplished was to spread the dots of guts into streaks of guts all over the windshield. A search was made for the washer fluid but there was absolutely none. Mike was apparently out.
There was nothing we could do. I drove the rest of the way home with bee streaks all over the windshield. I could barely see. But we made it home. So it all worked out in the end, see? Though I highly doubt I’ll be driving home again any time soon.
~
We had gone up there to collect Rebecca from the airport and to check on getting Annie a passport. We had left around five in the morning and Jon had driven the whole way to Hermosillo in Mike’s car so it was understandable that he’d be tired from keeping track of all of us, waking up so early and being careful not to wreck Mike’s car. Because we’d have a lot to explain to Mike if we wrecked his car.
We had done everything we had gone to Hermosillo to do and were heading back home when we stopped at a gas station so Sarah could get a coconut with chamoy and Annie went and bought Jon some coffee. While Annie was inside, I told Jon I’d drive. He looked at me through the rearview mirror and said, “I just might let you do that.”
In order to make sure he didn’t change his mind I got out of the car and walked around to the driver’s side door and waited for Jon to get out. Annie came back outside during this time and I told her what was going on. In order to disguise the extreme fear showing on her face she said, “No fair!” Or something like that.
But Annie got in and Jon got in and Sarah got in the passenger’s side. Rebecca was already sitting in the back and didn’t appear to be scared or anything. I quickly figured out how to adjust the seat and then started to pull out when Jon reminded me to put my seatbelt on. We were just about to pull out onto the highway when Jon said again, “This is nothing against you, Liz, but would you mind if we had a word of prayer before we left?” I continued to drive but told them that no, that wouldn’t be a problem. So Jon prayed and then Annie said she wanted to pray but she said this in jest I suppose and ended up not praying.
For the first two minutes all things went very well. Then Jon told me that I should move into the right lane because apparently the left lane is reserved for people who are passing which was news to me. So I started to pull over and everyone started screaming. From out of nowhere this blue car was speeding past us on the right side and I almost ran into them. So I resisted the urge to change lanes for awhile and everyone encouraged me in this decision.
A few miles more down the road everyone apparently got tired of my exciting driving style which is that I’ll change the speed every other second or so, going fast or slow depending on what my attention is focused on at the moment. So Jon attempted to explain cruise control which I didn’t want to implement at the moment but Sarah forced the issue by reaching across and turning it on anyway. So then we were cruising at seventy miles an hour and I didn’t know how to get out of it. Jon said to just tap on the breaks so I did and we slowed way down and then sped up again. Later on in the drive I managed to figure out how to use cruise control to my advantage and for an extended period of time we were cruising at a good eighty-five miles an hour. But this would be several more miles down the road.
Things settled down a bit after the cruise control incident and Sarah put a CD in so everyone started calming down and things got quieter after everyone’s hearts stopped beating so hard. We stopped at a gas station during this peaceful interval and when I pulled back onto the highway there was a bit of stress because Jon had to direct me to go left and I had momentarily forgotten which direction left was but we managed to make the road we needed and so all was good. I was a bit panicked though. I managed to calm down and, during a long, straight, empty stretch of road I built up speed until we were going 100 miles an hour. Everyone expressed extreme distaste at this action though and so I slowed down again.
Everything went smoothly from there on out until we came into Obregón. There is a road before driving into the city that has seven or eight speed bumps so everyone has to slow way down and be accosted by random people selling bread and chairs and cows and such. We managed to not buy anything although Sarah said if there were any strawberries she would have bought some. Probably to go with the coconut she had bought at the gas station two stops ago. She hadn’t finished it, probably because she was getting extremely car sick. I can’t imagine why.
It was during this time that everyone says we almost got killed three times. Don’t believe them. The man on the bridge will live and he won’t be walking down highways again, that blue Lumina won’t be passing any other cars on the highway for a long time and I won’t go so fast next to semi-trucks around curves again. Don’t worry. It was a learning experience that will not be easily forgotten by all parties involved. Although I think my passengers learned a different lesson than I did.
The last thing that happened was truly unique and would only manage to happen to us at this time. We were twenty miles away from home and suddenly we were attacked by a herd of bees. We won in the end, but the bees were splattered all over the windshield. Little dots of bee guts all over the place. It was disgusting. Sarah screamed when it happened. In order to solve the problem I turned the windshield wipers on but the only thing this accomplished was to spread the dots of guts into streaks of guts all over the windshield. A search was made for the washer fluid but there was absolutely none. Mike was apparently out.
There was nothing we could do. I drove the rest of the way home with bee streaks all over the windshield. I could barely see. But we made it home. So it all worked out in the end, see? Though I highly doubt I’ll be driving home again any time soon.
~
posted by Toy at 6:45 PM
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