Street Level

Got the new car. First test drive is after we've paid for it, loaded it up, discovered it has a tape deck in it -- who still listens to tapes?? -- gone back to the dealership and had them pull the CD player out.

My little family must have music to travel.

I offered to sing. Apparently that wasn't an option.

So off we head, about two more hours till we get to the lake, sunshine, rest, no telephone, no TV, no Internet -- my idea of heaven.

And sure enough, we got there with little problem, just some tense nerves.

You see, we were also towing our boat and apparently the first time you drive a new car, it's not recommended you do it loaded up with suitcases (except mine, of course), kayaks, a boat on a trailer, kids, dog and no music.

But rest we did. The youngest fished every day, the teenager caught minnows, floated, swam, dad worked on his tan and mom -- well, I read a lot of books and did my best to avoid a sunburn.

(There's a reason for this. The first time the hubby and I went on vacation, I covered up, slathered on lotion, put on a hat, went down to the lake, put my feet in the water and promptly fell asleep. A few hours later, we were looking for a medical clinic to look after what we were eventually told were second-degree burns.)

Midway through the second week, confident in his boat-driving skills, the hubby, youngest and I headed up the lake to a bay that had been described as Hawaii-like.
Shoulda known then something was going to happen.

We're edging in to the shore and the hubby decides to hop off and tow us in with the nifty boat rope I was told to never lose.

Sounds simple? Should have been. Except for the fact that his trunks got caught on a cleat, he fell off the boat, went underwater -- and came up without his glasses.

Not cheap sunglasses that could be replaced. His I-must-have-to-read-see-drive-work glasses.

We looked.

And we looked.

The hubby didn't look that well, but he could be excused, since he couldn't see.

We looked until the hub and the youngest declared them gone forever and headed up a hiking trail.

I, however, had been re-reading a Jeffrey Deaver book with his oh-so-cool protagonists Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs. The thing about Amelia, you see, is when she examines a crime scene, she walks a grid.

So that's what I did.

Walked one way for a distance, stopped, took a step to the side and walked back.
Did this for a long time, way past the time when the hubby had declared me nuts to keep looking.

Voila!

Found them.

Intact, fine, wet but at least we had them and the rest of the vacation wouldn't have to be done with me reading road signs aloud.

Later that day, we took the boys out tubing. We'd been doing it throughout the vacation, no problems, but on this day, one of those green cords (they all have different colours and, I assume, different functions) ricocheted off its hook.
Didn't seem like much; we stopped the boat, hooked it up again and the boys enjoyed the rest of the ride.

The next day, though, the teen said he thought the bilge pump was working overtime.
Sure enough, we were taking on water. Out comes the boat, back onto the trailer but no worries -- we were going home in two days.

So finally, the end of our somewhat memorable vacation. It had replaced the burned-feet-couldn't-walk vacation and had also surpassed the let's-go-camping-in-the-wilderness trip we took a few years ago.

The one where I forgot to pack a can opener.

And bug spray.

But I took my suitcase!

Anyhow, the hubby's packing up the car to get a jump on our final day. He's outside for quite a while when he comes stomping in, cursing up a storm.
Seems his glasses -- the ones I found in the lake -- had kept sliding down his nose.
He decided to rectify this.

He decided the way to do this was to bend them.

He came in holding one half in one hand, the other -- well, you get the picture.

Good thing we packed duct tape.

Posted by Dale at 11:00 a.m. Comments