We woke to an unwelcome alarm this AM at 5:30. I have gotten pretty used to the swing shift schedule where I vaguely hear Keith's alarm go off around 6:00 each morning, but can smile to myself and fall back into neverland knowing I can sleep in as long as my body wants....which has been about 9:00 lately. Not this morning. Today I had to drag myself out of bed bright and early as we had a plane to catch out of PDX at 10:30. We are heading to the sun to finally visit Carl at CalPoly in San Luis Obispo (SLO) - this is our last chance to do so, as this is his graduation weekend!
We had an uneventful trip to Portland and on through to San Jose, landing down a bit early. Then we hit the rental car line. Apparently we didn't get some special, one time deal. Dollar Rental has got to be giving cheap cars out to everyone because the line was LONG and SLOW. As we were in no hurry, we went with it, and did not get irritated.....About 45 minutes later at the counter, I eavesdrop on the lady next to me (OK, so I've been eavesdropping and people watching since I entered the airport....it's one of my downfalls, OK?). She was inquiring about the size of her car. When she was told it would be smaller than a Geo and without power steering, I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head. As she proceeded to agree to pay for an upgrade, I asked the lady helping me if that is how small our car was going to be. She looked at me, gave me a half-nod and a knowing-winking kind of smile. Not knowing what to make of that, I shrugged it off as we weren't too concerned about the car and as Keith pointed out, "it'll get good gas mileage at least".
However, my rental car attendant (what do you call them anyway?) continued to act very suspicious and at one point gave me that smile again, only this time putting the top of her pen just above her upper lip (just under the nose). Well that did it. I was then convinced I had a big booger hanging from my nose, and finally understood why she was acting so weird. So I slyly brushed my hand against my nose a couple times with no results. As she finished up the paperwork, she leaned in real close and said, "Don't tell those other people, but I got you a real nice car - a Dodge Stratus." (aka, not a roller skate on wheels). I have no idea why she did that for us....just caught her at the right time I suppose....
So now we sit in mid-size rental car luxury driving south on 101 through Salinas and beyond towards SLO. Passing lots of pretty valleys, agriculture, and hunched over migrant workers. Looking down the fields as we pass by is almost like watching a flip book as the images appear briefly at the end of each row. We had a nice lunch in Gonzales, which distinctly reminded me of Mexico - the houses, restaurants, everything written in Spanish. And now pushing onwards to the graduation festivities in SLO....
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