Adventures

My weekend was pretty lovely. I had a nice visit with B, including a late night talk and a nummy breakfast. I'm so glad she stopped by.

On Sunday afternoon, I went out to meet S at CAL for a walk around the campus. I haven't been eating much lately, so I didn't walk far before I got shaky and hungry. Luckily, I'd planned for this eventuality and snacked on my Clif bar...which about a half an hour later made me nauseous and uncomfortable.

Before the nausea and discomfort came on, S and I went for a lovely tour of the campanili. I'm not sure I spelled that right - it's basically the campus clocktower with a carollon of bells. It gives a great view. S pointed out the buildings in campus where he has spent most of his time (including the one he wrote his thesis in).

It was really nice to hang out with him. We didn't talk about much in depth...it was just really good to be together.

I slept in this morning until 9 a.m. It felt luxurious. I haven't done much today. I went out to by a set of shelves, since the hanging shelf-thing that had been holding some of my toiletry items broke (it was a scavenge...someone had left it on the curb). I think I went a little overboard, but I like what I got.

I was hanging out after eating lunch when my mother called. They've been driving across country and usually call at night, so I was a little surprised to hear from her. She tells me that she's going to get her voicemail set up, then says they are in Blythe, CA and they will be staying there for the next couple days...oh, and they've had an adventure, but they would tell me about that later.

Yeah, like I'm not going to push on that one. So after convincing her that I won't yell, regardless of what the adventure is, she starts the tale.

They had started out yesterday morning to go see a ghost town in the desert outside of Phoenix. I didn't really get if they took a wrong turn or how it happened, but they ended up stranding their car in a washed out gully. In the middle of the Arizona desert. With no cell reception.

They tried to jack up the car to put rocks under it so they could get out of the gully, but by about 4:30 p.m., they decided they would have to stop for the night. They spent the night in the car...it's at this point that my mother reassures me that, even though dad hadn't wanted to take water with them, she'd put a case in the trunk.

They had the windows open for most of the night, so could clearly hear the coyotes (mom thought they were owls)...they were apparently close enough to have found their footprints near the car in the morning.

In the morning, they decide that it is time to try to trek back out to the main road. They gathered some water, a golf umbrella, their IDs and the cell phone. Mom said that they only walked about 1 1/2 miles before they found a place high enough that they got reception on the cell and were able to call 911.

I have been sworn not to tell anyone in the family...I guess this will be a good way to see if anyone in the family has found my blog. My parents are concerned that my sister will find out and go out there and take them home. Of course, I was just concerned that they might have learned a valuable lesson. My mother assures me she did - no more unpaved roads for them, especially in the middle of a desert.

I think they had enough of an adventure for us all this Memorial Day. I hope yours was safe...or at least, you too got out of it alive.