Monday, February 10, 2014

CABS, CANARIES AND MOMENT TO RELAX

Dizzy beginning, good ending.

   God gave me a great stomach. Big, but still great. If you can cook it, I'll eat it. If there's a roller coaster to be ridden, I'll ride it. And boats and mountain roads--child's play.  I realize it's a gift from the Almighty and last night we learned, again, that some are not so lucky.
    As we arrived in the dark across a high-seas boat-ride from Tenerife to La Gomera on a beautiful ferry (albeit 'rolling' more than Elvis in concert)

Karen charged ahead to get a cab. This island is only 23 kilometers wide, but that's as the crow (or should I say 'canary') flies. Put differently, it was roughly a million miles more or less, switchback, blind curves, up-and-down to our destination, and just for a few giggles, let's make it pitch black, foggy and raining.
    For the record, as if that matters (but it might in case you ever hear Karen's version) Karen chose the guy. A swarthy, tall, dark, good-looking Canarian. We hopped in his Mercedes station-wagon "cab" and he took off. "Launched" would be a more appropriate description, as in accelerated so quickly we were pushed into our seats at mach-6 speed. Lord help the guy in front of us, passed in town. Lord help the next guy, passed as we shot up a curve into the mountains. Lord help us, as our intrepid astronaut of a drive flew past a small bus only to have a car waiting for him, lights off (apparently another Canarian anomaly--driving at night without lights). We swerved, cut the guy off we were passing and accelerated around the corner. At this point I noticed the town was only a distant light, far below--barely visible over the guardrail. No, wait, there was no guardrail, and it was a sheer mountain on our right, cliff on our left....
    At this point, I looked over at Karen (after I fastened my seatbelt, said a prayer and closed my eyes a bit) and she was white. Of course she's white, I mean she was REALLY WHITE, as in all the blood gone from her face, parsed lips, cross-eyed, breathing hard looking for a bag (and not to carry the groceries in) I said, "Are you OK?" -- STUPID QUESTION. She uncrossed her eyes just long enough to send daggers my way and uttered, for the 12 millionth time in the last several weeks--"I can't believe you talked me into this.".  Maybe a few road pictures (in the light of the next day) will help everyone understand that Space Mountain is not in California, the real "space mountain" is right here.



     We did make it, of course, and Karen informed me, "Don't even ask me to get in a car tomorrow!" So, today, like the Bible directs, we treated it as the Sabbath and rested.

      As for tomorrow....I have a stick shift VW that will likely test our marriage a bit more... or perhaps we'll just sit on our terrace and eat/drink the day away...

1 comment:

  1. I like that you have as many electronic devices at breakfast in Spain as you do at home.

    ReplyDelete