A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Honeymoon

Yesterday I told you about The Hillbilly and our wedding and the beginning of our honeymoon. After a few days on the coast we flew to Missouri to pack up all of his belongings and move him to California. Because, after all, it would be nice if we lived in the same state, being newlyweds and all.

Our plan was to leave town at the crack of dawn on Monday morning. At 3:00 Monday morning, The Hillbilly was still loading the trailer. I finally gave up and went to bed. We didn’t leave until that afternoon. We had a reservation at the Clarion Hotel in Amarillo, TX, and we got there about midnight. When we walked into room, exhausted and ready to collapse, it was a mess! It had never been cleaned from the last occupants. The bed was unmade and there were dishes of food sitting around. I called the front desk, and they sent someone up with keys for several other rooms. The closest room was a smoking room, and it was out of the question, so we traipsed clear across the hotel to a more acceptable room. As it turned out, when we got our credit card bill, we were charged for two rooms, so I had to straighten that out at a later date.

We left Amarillo the next morning intending to get to Barstow, CA, that night. Fortunately, we didn’t have a reservation. Somewhere near Tucumcari, NM, as we pulled into a filling station, our water pump blew out, spewing water everywhere. There was nothing for 25 miles in either direction, except, miraculously a garage about ¼ mile up the road. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the part we needed. However, they were able to get it within a couple hours. The people were amazingly nice to us and worked hard to get us back on the road. I remember being so impressed with how calmly and patiently my Hillbilly handled the whole situation. We sat in the waiting area and chatted with the employees and generally enjoyed each other's company.

Several hours later we were back on the road heading west. As we were entering Gallup, NM it was getting late, and we got a flat tire on the trailer. And we didn’t have a spare. We pulled off the freeway and rolled to a stop directly across the street from a Best Western Inn. A very nice one. We checked into the motel to wait until the tire shops in town opened in the morning. I called and ordered a pizza to be delivered. An hour later, we still had no pizza, so I called back. The janitor answered; he was the only one there. I have no idea what happened to our pizza, but I called pizza restaurant #2, and within 45 minutes (it’s probably 10 o’clock by this time), we had dinner.

The next day was New Year’s Eve day. The Hillbilly got busy and found someone who could bring us a new tire. Closer inspection showed that the tire had gone flat because a spring on the trailer had broken causing the trailer body to drag directly on the top of the tire. So where can we get the spring replaced? Why, at the garage/trailer repair shop right next door! They were planning on closing at noon that day, and they managed to get us back on the road right about noon. Happy New Year.

We finally made it to Barstow that night. We got a little lost looking for a motel, but we finally found one and checked in. I changed into my jammies, and then used the toilet. Which overflowed. The Hillbilly stopped it, and I called the front desk. 

The sweet little girl at the desk said, “Well, no one can come fix it until morning.” 

Ooooookay. This was fine with me, I explained, but could we possibly have a different room?

"Oh, yeah!"

And we didn’t even get charged for two rooms this time. 

Let’s all take a deep breath. I’m exhausted.

Ok. The rest of the trip was uneventful. We made it from Barstow to home in the usual time with no drama involved. Looking back, I’m not as impressed by the unfortunate events as I am by the fortunate circumstances that always accompanied them. We had plenty of money because many people gave us cash at our reception in his hometown. Most of that cash was in the hands of various mechanics by the time we made it home, but at least we had it when we needed it. And it’s amazing that we always broke down in the vicinity of the perfect repair place for our needs. So really, we consider our journey to have been blessed. It gave us a wonderful opportunity to go through slightly troubled times together and see how well we both handled it. On the whole, I still think it was a wonderful honeymoon. And the marriage has been just as good. After all, we have been married for 39.94 Kardashians!

My Favorite Hillbilly

Just over 8 years ago, I met this really nice man. He's from Missouri. He refers to himself as a Missouri, redneck, Ozarkian hillbilly. He's a nut, but he's my nut. We met in June at a church function I was attending in his hometown in Missouri, and we married in December. Our four grown children smiled and mostly kept their mouths shut. Thank you, grown children.

Us with our smiling grown children

Let me tell you about My Hillbilly. Aside from having sayings that make no sense whatsoever ("He was goofier than a mashed cat"), he's really a wonderful man. Of course, I knew that before I married him (honest I did, grown children), but it became really apparent to me during the series of misadventures we laughingly refer to as our honeymoon.

The unfortunate events actually started before the honeymoon or even the wedding day. I always get my flu shot in the fall, but the fall of 2003 was very busy. I was selling a house, buying a house, moving, and planning a wedding. So you can see there was no time to stop and get a flu shot. Naturally, a week before the wedding, I came down with a lovely case of the flu accompanied by vertigo. Dizzy spells. Very dizzy. Fortunately not all the time, so wedding plans continued. I drank lots of OJ, took lots of decongestant and kept going. An hour before the wedding, I was in the ladies’ room swigging Robitussin from the bottle. I didn’t know it at the time, but The Hillbilly had a sore tooth which would become abscessed in the next few days.

The wedding went well and the reception was fun. While we were enjoying our reception our children were decorating our car. They used several cans of shaving cream and blue crepe paper. Did I mention that it was raining? And we had rented a white car for the honeymoon? And that wet, blue crepe paper will dye the white paint on your car? While cleaning shaving cream off the rental car, The Hillbilly lost the extra key to my regular car, and we never did find it. 

The guilty parties. Evidence to be used at a later date.

 

We drove our blue and white rental car to the coast for a few days and had a lovely time. We walked on the beach, and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium . We ate at several really nice restaurants including our new favorite, Bullwhacker’s. It was all very nice except for the parts where he was holding his face in his hand moaning, or the parts where I was having dizzy spells or throwing up. Oh, and the earthquake. But that was centered many miles away, and while it surprised The Hillbilly, I was used to it, and my head was spinning so much I hardly noticed it anyway.

Fortunately when we returned home, my brothers-in-law were able to buff the blue out of our car, so it was white when we returned it.

Rather than make this the longest blog post ever written, I'll continue tomorrow with the portion of the story in which the car breaks down and miracles occur.

In the meantime, tell me, what was the worst thing that happened on your honeymoon?

Whatever happened to childhood?

I grew up in the sixties. The childhood I remember is something my grandchildren will probably never experience. Today’s parents would probably be calling CPS on all the moms in my neighborhood. I wouldn’t change a thing!

I lived in a suburban neighborhood in Southern California filled with kids. Nearly every  house had multiple kids. Every house with kids had a real mom and a real dad living with the children.

 Vickie lived on the corner. She had some older brothers, but they were much older—Teenagers. So I don’t know much about them. Next to Vickie lived Emily, Anita, and Johnny. We lived on the other side of them, my older brother, my two little sisters, and I. My best friend Marie lived on our other side. She had a younger brother and sister. Her sister played with my little sisters. Next to Marie lived Sharon. Sharon was an only child. That was weird, but we liked her anyway. Next came Nancy and her little brother, Steven. Finally, there was Sherrie and her little brother. I don’t remember his name. They were Jehovah’s Witness, so they never got to come to our birthday parties. Again, we thought that was weird, but it wasn’t important. They were our friends.

Across the street from Sherrie lived Holly and two younger brothers. Holly’s mom was the only mom whom we called by first name. All the other parents were Mr. and Mrs. I never really had much respect for Holly’s mom. Next to them was Paul. He was my little sisters’ age, and he had an older sister that I don’t remember much about except that she wore too much makeup. A few houses down lived the four Osborn kids, then Kevin and his older sister (who also wore too much makeup). The paved road ended, and where the dirt road began lived the last family of our friends: Steven, Stacie, Reva Jean, and Boyd.

It was a roving circus! We left the house after breakfast and went out to play. We ate lunch wherever we were at lunch time. We did things that would shock today’s parents. At the end of the block was an empty field with a few trees. They were wonderful climbing trees. Even the smallest of us could grab hold of the lowest branches and clamber up into cool green of the leaves. The older the child, the higher we climbed. We tested the limits of our bravery, clinging tightly when we reached the highest point we dared achieve, then waved, yelling, “Look at me!”

In a small thicket of bushes in the field, some shovel-carrying boys once dug a “fort.” We could crawl on our bellies below the low branches and find ourselves in a cool, dark secret place from where we could spy on our friends. Or they could spy on us from the same secret place.

We girls built Barbie villages in our yards. We all owned several Barbies, and Sharon, the only child, owned every Barbie outfit that had ever been made. My Barbie had a British accent.

Here’s where it gets really terrifying. We played in the street. Right in the MIDDLE OF THE STREET!  And our moms let us!  We played baseball, using rocks or rags for bases. If there weren’t enough kids available for baseball, we played catch. Occasionally some kid would shout, “Car!” and we would all scurry out of the street waiting for the car to pass, and then swarm back to our game.

We played Hide ‘n’ Seek, and every front yard in the neighborhood, on either side of the street,  was fair for a hiding place. We played tag and shot each other with sticks and fought and cried and made up and wiped the tears from our dirty faces. Finally, when the streetlights came on, we slowly made our way back to our own homes, our dinner tables, our bathtubs, our beds. To sleep and dream. To wake up and do it all again the next day.

Whatever happened to childhood?