disaster!trip

Although I think this is really perhaps a lesson in making the best of things. Because it’s kind of been a disaster. And we’ve managed to make the best of things. I actually had a very nice day today, despite my fears of a ruined birthday because the trip was, at least yesterday, a disaster!

A rundown: we hit rain outside Columbia. It rained, it poured, it tossed buckets down. There were at LEAST five wrecks on the interstate, several of which caused the traffic to come to a standstill so that it takes us an hour longer to get to Charleston than usual. But we finally do make it. And the whole day we’ve both said, "I’m SURE it will clear up! I’m SURE it will blow over!!" It was supposed to rain yesterday and even storm in the evening, then clear up today. Rain. Storm a bit. We didn’t hear a thing about Tropical Storm Barry, despite keeping a close watch on the weather. For things like tropical storms and hurricanes. No mention of Barry.    

So we go on downtown instead of stopping by the motel first. It’s pouring. The wind is whipping. There is water all OVER the place. There are lakes of water all over the road. Baker B is driving and just as we get to East Bay Street, he drives through this huge pool of water. That he doesn’t see. And for a couple of minutes the car acts REALLY weird. Kind of like it’s missing a valve all of a sudden. It’s jumping and spitting. But in a few minutes it seems fine again, so we actually find a convenient parking spot right on East Bay. And we put on our raincoats and get our umbrellas and continue to insist things are fine and we don’t mind getting a little wet and we start walking.

And it POURS. And the wind is howling, and the palmtrees are whipping around and everyone’s umbrellas are turning inside out. Still, we walk around as long as we can. The rain kept letting off then getting worse, so there were a few less monsoon-like periods. But it’s very wet and kind of not fun, so we end up going to the Smokehouse where we like to hang out and get beer and they have very good, not terribly expensive food. Actually, we went twice – once for food pretty early on, then for beers later, around dark. And it kept pouring. So we went to the coffee shop right beside the Smokehouse and sat in there awhile watching people’s umbrellas turning inside out and palmtrees whipping around. And at around 8:30 we decide we might as well just go on to the motel.

And the car won’t start. It turns over, but won’t start. And it’s pouring rain. By then we’re running low on the "Oh, this is FUN! And I’m SURE it will get better!" attitude. It’s nearly nine, we’re tired, we’re soaked, and the car won’t start. I call AAA. Of course it takes nearly an hour for them to arrive, giving us lots of time to sit there trying to convince ourselves that this is FUN. And it will BE FINE. It’s the battery, it will be fine!!

Well the tow truck guy, who looks like Tom Wait’s gone-to-seed,  long-lost brother, says it’s the water we drove through, jumping off won’t help, he’ll have to tow us. So we get him to tow us to the motel, since we don’t know where ELSE to go. And we really need to go to the motel. Because we’re exhausted and we’re soaked and it’s harder and harder to stay convinced about how much fun we’re having. So Tom Wait’s gone-to-seed brother gets the car onto the wrecker, after stopping traffic in both directions on East Bay on Saturday night and having the police tell him he had to get out of the way so he didn’t even tie the car down till he got moved and around the corner, which was kind of unnerving.

But he takes us to Mt. Pleasant, over the huge new bridge where the wind is whipping so hard the tow truck is going some 20 mph at full tilt and he says he’s surprised they haven’t closed the bridge off. So we try to count ourselves lucky. We finally make it to the motel, which is only maybe 5 miles away, and I go to check in while they unload the car. And the woman at the desk – who oddly enough knows Tom Wait’s gone-to-seed brother and in fact used to work at the towing company – tells me she’d love to check me in but the computers have all crashed. And she can’t tell what room we’re in.

At that point I’m ready to burst into tears. We collapse into the lobby chairs, too tired and wet and discouraged to even ask her what the hell we can do, and watch her answer twelve zillion angry calls about room leaks and water coming under the doors and people who want to move out of their room but can’t because the computers are down.

They DO come back up, though, all of a sudden, and we finally finally finally get a room. We unload all our stuff in the pouring rain and get even more soaking wet, which I wouldn’t think possible. Then Baker B tries to turn on his white noise machine which is really an old stereo which we take with us on trips because Baker B has to have white noise or he gets really really crazy. And… it doesn’t work. It is soaking wet.

Baker B finally has a meltdown. And for once I don’t blame him a bit because he’s been bizarely resigned about everything that’s happened so far and has really really tried to be optimistic and hopeful, which it is not Baker B’s nature to be. The loss of the white noise was the last straw.

But that at least has a happy ending. We turned the blowdrier onto the stereo, and I continued to dry it with the blowdryer even after Baker B told me to quit it, it wasn’t going to work, it was ruined, it was dead, and he was throwing it off the balcony. And, like magic, it came back to life!

So far the car has not come back to life. Yet we managed to have a fine day today, after realizing that we can’t do anything about it until tomorrow. Everything was closed today. We took a taxi to town this morning and spent the day walking aound. And it FINALLY quit raining. In fact, the sun came out and in about ten seconds there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was quite enjoyable. We both just didn’t think about the car. Even after the taxi driver said she killed hers driving through standing water and then trying to start it. It blew out a rod. I think something’s just drenched in ours. Then we took another taxi back tonight. Baker B had never ridden in a taxi, but now he’s a taxi convert and thinks we should take them all the time here. Which would be a tad extravagant at ten dollars a trip, but actually on weekdays when parking is a nightmare, it might be worth it. But that’s neither here or there.

So, send my car good energy! We’re going to call AAA again tomorrow and either get it jumped off if it’s the battery, or towed to a garage. Where they can dry it out, I hope. It came closer than ever to starting tonight, so it might even start by itself by tomorrow.

And I’ll leave – since I’m falling asleep writing this – with some pictures! We DO have wireless – obviously – and I’ve already loaded a bunch on Flickr. I LOVE wireless.

Rain when we arrived. This is from the third floor bar in the Smokehouse, which has fantastic views.

 

 

Rain from the coffeeshop!

 

 

Trees whipping around!

 

 

 

More rain!!

But at last – it’s a break in the rain.