Vaya Con Dios Part 1 of 2

I don't think I'm ever as happy with Jaime as I am when we're moving at high speeds.

I love flying with him, driving with him and riding on trains built way too small for him, but I always fit, so it's fine. We've never been on a boat together we just realized. That might actually cause a divorce. We'll see.

It's not that we're good travelers so much as good travel buddies. We want to pursue the same completely irrational feats but give up on them at exactly the same times, and last weekend was no different.

We made Friday an early night so that we could leave for Arkansas at the ass crack of dawn (8ish). I was pretty proud of Jaime who required minimal nagging to get out the door. He even said he would drive! However, he was very quickly not so proud of me when he heard the nasty sound our car made when driven above 60 mph. I'm usually the one who drives it, so I should know better.

In my defense, our coffee pot broke earlier in the week, and I thought an early morning road trip was an ideal time to kick my habit.

No.

He was right. I was wrong. Let's not fucking dwell on it.

Less than an hour later, I was on the phone with Chopper. He told me to bring it on in because they could at least diagnose the problem though he reckoned they wouldn't have time to fix it.

Jaime wasn't in the mood to talk to me. I had no idea why. I asked Chopper if he knew where I could get some coffee, and before I could pretend to try to stop him, he darted over to the cafe next door that I had already noticed wouldn't be open for another two hours. He banged on the back door, and all I heard was, "Jesus! I was jus' checkin'." I was grateful ta him for tryin'.

The guy who wasn't called Chopper told us that he recommended that we not drive to Arkansas seeing as how our front driver's side wheel was about to fall off and all. We thanked them, gave them twenty bucks and agreed that fixing it might be the better option over death.

We drove back to the city then into Kansas City, Kansas cause Jaime knew a guy who knew a guy. Sounded legit.

We spent the next five hours chilling in the Hispanic barrio.

That was the day that I learned without a doubt that Jaime is not a Latino. It may have been the gringo wife, or the fact that he informed the mechanic that he'd "bringo" the car around, but no one gave two shits about speaking to him in Spanish. Can you blame them? I can't. We just ate our tamales, drank our "100% sugar!" tamarind soda, napped on a picnic bench and pretended we weren't to blame for the economic conditions of the neighborhood. I think they believed us.

We got the call to pick up our car, and we were totally not shocked but still annoyed that it was more expensive than we thought. My conquistador pulled out his debit card only to be told that it was a cash only operation.

How freaking fabulous!

We found an ATM. No receipt from the mechanic. But it didn't make the noise anymore.

Eight hours after we were supposed to begin this bitch of a trip...Vamos? Vamos.