Getting Blown Around

So let me tell you about yesterday evening, or at least the crazy attempt by us to have a dinner out.

I was supposed to have a meeting at church last night at 7:00. Since tax season hours have started and I don’t get off work until 6:00, Meron and I decided to meet out for dinner.

Also, a relevant fact was that we had a strong front come through here during the day yesterday. The temperature at 1:00 was around 72. The temperature around 5 was closer to 42. Along with the change came some extremely strong winds.

I left the office and looped around the block, heading for the Mexican place we were supposed to meet at. If you are from or have been to Russellville, you know that the town is pretty much split in two by railroad tracks. You can obviously see where this is heading.

Not only was there a train on the tracks, but it was a very slow moving train that had traffic backed up probably about 8 cars deep. I waited and waited and waited. The train then stopped. For a while.

I call Meron to tell her I’ll be a little late. By this time, it’s already 6:15. Meron says the place is packed. After I hang up, I decide that, if the train actually is stopped, I can probably get down to the next crossing, then loop back to where I need to go. I did that and got back to the road I was on. (The train still hadn’t budged).

I get to the restaurant and Meron is right—the place is extremely crowded. So much so that I am circling the parking lot, looking for a spot when the wife calls me back. Apparently things are so crazy in there that she’s been waiting for 10 minutes and hasn’t even been looked at in acknowledgement, much less asked how many in the party. She tells me to park and I finally do, just in time to help her get the kids into the car and decide where next to go. We’re close to the oldest Taco Bell in town, so we decide to go there.

As I get closer, I notice everything seems a little dim. We both pull into the parking lot to learn that the place is closed due to a power outage. There were some lights on in the place, but either they were emergency lights or no one had come back to see that the power was back on.

By now Meron is completely frustrated. It’s 6:30 and we try to figure out some place to go that Benjamin will eat that is fast enough for me to get to the church. Finally, she says to me, “Do you really have to go to this meeting?”

I’ve gone to church for a long time. I’ve been in Promise Keepers for years. All that stuff about respecting your wife? It can save your life at times. Because, with that tone, I knew that it was probably wise of me to say, “No, I guess not.”

We headed home. When we get there and I get out of the car, Meron asks if we want to just go to the Taco Bell on our side of town. Makes sense, so I park my car and get into hers.

They put in the new Taco Bell a couple of years ago now. It’s extremely convenient for us, since we go out of our driveway onto 19^th Street, then turn on to Elmira and go straight until we get there. One turn, nice and easy.

Except that nothing is nice and easy during this excursion. When we get to the four-way stop on Elmira, there’s a large truck with yellow flashing lights blocking the way. Apparently there were power lines down on the road. We took an alternate route (one I’d never taken before, but wasn’t too bad) and finally, finally got to Taco Bell around 7:00 or a little after.

Found out this morning that there were 13,000 people without power in this area, which would account for the crowds we saw everywhere last night. We weren’t affected, thankfully, save for the adventure above!