Here’s your quiz: what do four states, Carhenge, and a tornado have in common? If you said my sister and me, you’ve been paying attention.
This all got started when my sister and I drove six hours from home, into Wyoming, to visit family. We had a full day for the return trip, so why not go a different way?
Ah, you can see the problems forming like storm clouds on the horizon, huh?
Hold that metaphor. You’ll need it later.
We started out in Wyoming (state one) and drove east to Rapid City, South Dakota (state two) for breakfast. The skies were vast and clear blue.
Then we turned south toward Scottsbluff, Nebraska (state three), inspired by the prairie, the rocky bluffs, and massive fluffy clouds.
Detouring to the Replica
Then somebody in the car who wasn’t me wanted to go to Carhenge. Why not? We re-programmed our maps app.
Carhenge features dented cars and pickups buried and arranged like a to-scale replica of Stonehenge.
The founder’s motto is “Why not?”
After checking out every old car in the park, we reprogrammed our maps app to take us home. We’d get back to Colorado (state four) early afternoon.
That’s what we thought.
Our maps took us east. We didn’t notice because the road curved like limp spaghetti. Well, and because we were talking a lot, too.
“We’d better not be going through Sidney,” I said.
“Why?”
“It’s out of our way.” I checked the app.
Going East After All
We were heading straight for Sidney. Too late to correct. We were better off staying the course and getting home from the east rather than north.
As we closed in on our hometown, I was studying the weather app when my sister said, “Those clouds south of us look ugly.”
“Radar shows the red spot in the storm will stay south of us. You won’t have to drive through it this time.”
When we were out on the road and came onto a storm, she was always the one driving through the red spot–that howling, angry rain-and-wind part of the storm. She gets growly about that sometimes. “Do you see what I see?”
What We Both Saw
I looked up from the app. “A tornado.” I loaded up the camera app.
I shot pictures while she fidgeted. To be fair, the tornado was more of a wannabe with a wimpy, pale tail.
“It won’t cross the road,” I said, looking at the weather app again. “And it’s dissipating.”
“I’m not driving past a tornado.” She veered across two lanes of traffic–she checked first–and took us off in yet another direction.
Our six-hour trip took about ten hours. But the tornado subsided. We visited Carhenge. And we did not go through a fifth state to get home. A good day overall.
I often travel with my sister, who is as into to-do lists as I am. She called me the day before we left on a trip last month. “Are you packed?”
“As much as you are.”
Which was code for, “I haven’t even done my laundry yet.”
We had decided to visit family in Wyoming.
I actually booked a motel room for us ten days ahead of time at the Arrowhead Motel. I had several emails confirming the reservation. All from the Arrowhead Motel.
I was ready to order the “New Great Planner” award for myself as we started out for Sundance.
As we neared the town, my sister (who was driving) asked for directions to the motel. So I just punched “Arrowhead motel, Sundance” into my maps app.
Um, no Arrowhead Motel in Sundance.
I didn’t panic. I had at least five emails from Arrowhead Motel, so it must exist.
But did I dig into those emails? No, because I had a better plan. (As the New Great Planner).
Our brother had told me he and his wife were staying at the Bear Lodge Motel, which was right beside our motel. So I just needed to search for Bear Lodge Motel. That’d be faster than rummaging through all those emails.
I typed in Bear Lodge Motel, and the map found it. “Take a right at the stop sign,” I told my sister. “We need to go about a mile.”
Sure enough, a mile east we spotted a big bear sign on the corner with a sign Bearlodge right by a building about the size of a three-car garage.
Sundance was a small town, but really? That was a pretty small motel.
“That’s the Bearlodge Ranger District,” my sister said. Not nicely, either.
Whoosh. My planning award flew right out the window.
I hadn’t looked up the population yet (that’s more planning than I’d do) but learned it was a town of 1,143, small enough to accommodate driving up and down every street.
“Every street, huh?” My sister didn’t say that nicely, either.
I had a smart retort loaded into my response tray, but then I spotted a sign. Bear Lodge Motel. And right behind it was a building.
The size of a car wash. In fact, it was a car wash.
The Bear Lodge Car Wash?
A block later, we spotted a big sign for Bear Lodge Motel and a little sign beside it for Arrowhead Motel.
What did I learn? That Wyoming small towns seem to like names like “Bear Lodge” and “Arrowhead.”
The last time I counted, I got 46,812 newsletters in my inbox in a month. You think I’m exaggerating, huh?
You’re right, of course. It’s 36,812 newsletters.
A new one flew into my inbox last week and the writer of this one was too fast with the SEND button. Because the last section looked like this:
You know about lorem ipsum, I’m sure.
The placeholder for future text.
Website and publication designers love it. So do newsletter editors.
I always assumed that it was Latin for “put your text right here when you get a chance.”
Either that, or someone tossed a Latin dictionary into a food processor.
I’d guess the author of the newsletter in question didn’t read my assumed Latin prompt (“Put your text right here…”) because they hadn’t pasted in their own text. Or maybe they pasted in Latin because their people did read Latin?
Except me.
First, I laughed at the newsletter’s scrambled Latin. Then I got curious. (This is one of my fatal flaws.)
What if I offered this lorem ipsum text to Google Translate?
I pasted in the Latin text and Google spit out….the same Latin text.
Google can’t read Latin either?
But as I scrolled through Google’s non-translation, I found that Google had made a last-gasp effort to interpret the final bit.
Here’s what Google Translate came up with:
I now have another reason to read all the way to the end of all newsletters: you never know what disease basketball is about experience.
And I have compassion for the little Google bot who might have been expressing the agony of being forced to translate Latin gibberish. It really might be in a lot of pain.
(Yes, I know lorem ipsum is one of Cicero’s works tossed in a food processor and then spit out as nonsensical dummy text. Just work with me here. Facts do not hold my imagination back.)
Having lived in the Great American Desert all my life, I get excited when I see water. Here on the plains of northeastern Colorado, we use an eyedropper for our water breaks. Tumbleweeds carry canteens. Fish have to adjust to breathing sand part of the year. That’s why, on my vacation to North Carolina, I was busy making googly eyes at the enormous Tar River (it looked like the ocean to me) and all the boats at the docks. I nearly missed the day’s highlight. My friend didn’t miss our highlight. She lives in North Carolina and so was more jaded about water and fishing boats. (She and her husband celebrated our tumbleweeds when they came to Colorado, though. Just sayin’.) We were on a boardwalk on the water’s edge when a man stepped out of a sailboat tied at the dock and called to us.
I Almost Missed Our Highlight
My friend stopped. I was shooting photos of boats and water and I almost missed the big moment. This man had a crushed white shirt and equally rumpled khaki shorts. He pointed to a furry ridge on the eastern horizon. “See that island? It’s Goat Island. Privately owned.” “Woo hoo!” I figured we were going to get some great insider information. He studied the island for a moment. “You can’t go out there anymore. But I have a documentary about it coming out on Netflix next month. The guy who bought the island is a friend of mine.” This was getting more interesting. A surprising gold mine for my curious tourist brain.
I Was Fascinated
“There used to be a tunnel out to it, but that collapsed.” He looked back at us. “Oh, who built the tunnel?” my friend said. “Blackbeard. We had to use submersibles to get to the island.” Wow, the ancient history of the East Coast is fascinating. Blackbeard. A movie on Goat Island. This was better than the names painted on the fishing boats. Then the man leaned out a bit and pointed at me. “You have an amazing glowing spirit around you. It’s so strong that I can see things about her.” He nodded at my friend. “She’s Pocahontas, you know. And she has a very important life decision to make today.” He stared at her. “Be sure to take that seriously. It’s life-changing, what you need to decide today. Very important.” Then he waved his hands in the air. “Well, after all that, I need to go smoke some more grass. Maybe two.” He turned and disappeared into the cabin.
Big Decision Time
We both gawked at the boat for a moment. “So what’s your big decision going to be?” I said to my friend. “Hmmm. Big decision.” She twisted her mouth to the side. We never found out about the Netflix documentary on Goat Island or the collapsed tunnel built by Blackbeard. But my friend’s big decision found us a place that served tasty fish for lunch. Water adventures are amazing!
My morning’s confidence should’ve been a giveaway. But, no. I confidently assured my fellow travelers, who had to go through airline security with a baby, that I’d wait on the other side of security for them.
After all, I have TSA PreCheck. I didn’t have to shed my shoes or jacket. The TSA people in my line always brought me chocolate mints and an arm flourish as I walked through. (OK, I might have exaggerated that part.)
But that morning, I cleared the metal detector with no problem, only to watch my carry-on bags slide to the other side of a glass wall.
How was I supposed to get them over there?
Some Good Sense…
I did have the good sense not to reach over the barrier or I might be writing this from a cell.
Before long, I realized that the other side of the glass wall was reserved for suspect bags.
Like mine?
They were flagging quite a few, so I stood by patiently–which of course I always do (stand patiently, I mean)–until they got to my bag.
The attendant peeled back the zippered cover and went digging. She snagged my shaker bottle with the plastic bag of powder stuffed inside.
“That’s just protein powder,” I said. She didn’t even look at me. Instead, she scurried to another counter, dipped a small sample out of the bag, and dripped something onto the powder from a bottle that looked like it held eye drops.
“It’s protein powder,” I said. In case they were confused.
Nope. Not confused. My powder tested positive for something–they didn’t know what when I asked–and so my suitcase innards, my electronics, and I all got a pat-down.
Then they re-packed my suitcase, including the protein powder, and sent me on my way.
Repacking It All
I texted my hosts for the week: You may be housing a terrorist.
She texted back: Is it too late to run a background check?
Haha.
My morning’s confidence had melted away in the pat-down, but then I thought about my fellow travelers. Have they made it through security yet?
Right then, their text message arrived. Oh, good. I could still help. Maybe carry the baby. Or a bag.
Then I read the text: We’re at the gate.
I Learned
I once held the belief that airport security lines took forever. Long snake lines measured in eons.
But I’ve learned. Nothing takes as long as being threatened with protein powder prison.
But I will need some name ideas for my iPhone because I’m thinking I need to write a book tentatively entitled, The Secret Life of My iPhone, which sounds pretty bland. Even Walter Mitty sounded better, but I don’t think he had an iPhone.
The thing is, my phone has a secret life, slipping around behind my back.
Well, not exactly behind my back.
Who’d Figure?
I recently heard a voice coming from my pocket. I’m a little dense about talking pockets and it took me a minute to dig out my phone. The voice was my younger son.
“Mom? Mom? Are you okay?”
By the time I got the phone out, he sounded worried. We have a texting relationship, so he always answers when I call because he assumes those are emergencies.
Here he was, talking to the lint in my pocket because my iPhone (as yet unnamed, but we’re working on that, right?) called him. He’s thinking broken bones and I’m thinking my pocket had developed a deep voice.
Not His Fault
On another day, I had taken my grandson disc golfing. We had a great time flinging discs and then his mom texted us.
I’m guessing Joel has your phone…
Here’s what was on my iPhone screen:
All this with my phone tucked in my pocket.
Joel was innocent, since I knew he was playing disc golf with me. My phone, however, seemed to be fine implicating a blameless ten-year-old.
I can’t do a text message like that, but my iPhone managed it in the dark regions of my pocket. 🥴
Hung Up On
I once FaceTimed my sister from inside my pocket. Her view was pretty limited, and she hung up on me. Well, on my iPhone.
My phone dumped that rejection on me later. I could almost see tears in its eye. You think an Apple product doesn’t have an I?
The phone has called other random people on my contact list. I’m now glad I don’t know anyone in Germany or India. Imagine those bills while iPhones chatted about the weather across time zones.
I’ve decided I don’t give my phone enough attention. These are cries for more relationship with me instead of the inside of my pocket.
Just to add some companionship, I dropped in a car key one day to see if that helped.
It didn’t.
Clearly a Name is Necessary
So I need name ideas. Email me your ideas or you can leave a comment here.
And if you don’t help me out, you might someday get a random call from an unnamed iPhone and you’ll wish you had.
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