The weekend started horribly or furtiously depending upon your point of view.

I tried to get my shit together so I could leave straight from the sanctuary to ST’s house.  But I didn’t try too hard.  The cats were all at my place, about to be unattended for 48-hours+ and I felt better with an early afternoon check that the litters were clean, the water bowl was full, etc. even if it added an hour and a half to my schedule.

Someone was in front of me at the gate to my community.  An idiot because they didn’t see the gate was actually open and they could just drive through, but whatever.  I had to put on the brakes and come to a complete stop for her ineffectual card-wave at the reader.

When I stepped on the gas, Veronica stalled.

She started again just fine.  But once you put her in drive?  She has other ideas.

Some maintenance guys were at the gate and helped me get her to my parking spot.  I then went upstairs and called ST.  I had no idea what this would do for our weekend, as we were planning on driving her about 350 miles in a few hours.

He was very calm and efficient and wonderful about it.  Not that I was freaking out, and I knew in the end what should be done, but hearing it from him made me act a little faster.

I called Toyota (the belief at the time was it was a timing issue, and a dealership is best with those) and called AAA for a tow.  I didn’t know you could just call one and send your car off somewhere without accompanying it.  It felt wrong - like she would be carted to the junk yard accidently - but at the same time so nice to not have to leave the house.

In the meantime, ST was wrapping up work, driving home, grabbing clothes and Busch (Celeste, the cat, was already here), and driving over.  We’d really been looking forward to this trip and I was glad we weren’t going to let this stop us.  The big issue was that he drives a small, standard, truck.  I don’t drive stick and while I fully agree I need to learn, there was no way it was happening in the next hour.  He was going to have to drive the entire trip.

When the tow truck got here we learned Veronica will drive in reverse, just not forward.  This speaks to a transmission problem rather than timing.  As of right now, Toyota knows no more than that.  I don’t think they looked at her to be honest.

Both ST and his mother mentioned we should change our plans if I felt the need.  But frankly, if he was willing to drive I wanted to get as far away as possible from this mess.  The good things as I see it are that 1) she didn’t stall on me out in traffic 2) she stalled before we started the trip.

We got underway in rush hour on Friday.  The trip up wasn’t bad.  We seem to drive well together.  Only issue was the damn excited dog.  There is no room in a regular cab for an excited dog.

Somewhere on that drive we agreed that “The Gambler” is our song.

It was so cute how he got excited about seeing the water for the first time, and pointed out places that had changed, he’d eaten at, etc.  I’m sure if we’d been driving in from the north (his usual route), it would have been more.  My family does the same thing driving up to the cabin in Wisconsin.

We got into the cabin at Port St. Joe a little after 11pm.  It was an awkward way to meet his parents because he was so exhausted we basically said our hellos and ran right up to bed.

Not so awkward that I wouldn’t give it up a little in the morning though.  It was a vacation.  Is there anything better than vacation sex?

We made a quick meal of coffee cake, dressed in swimsuits and shorts, and headed out on the boat.

Oh, wait.  First we stopped for fishing licenses.  I have a fishing license.  Hee.  That cracks me up.  Although I know given the chance, ST will want to fish around here a bit and bring me along so it’s not a complete waste of money and paper.  And I held a rod for about 3 minutes that day, so for those 3 minutes I did not have to sweat the marine police hauling me off.

What did I do if I wasn’t fishing?  I finished a book for the Costa Rica class.  Oh, and burned.

Damn did I burn.  I was lax with the SPF because of all my time out at the sanctuary.  That and the stuff I brought was spray on, which works great but once out on the boat I was misting everyone else so I wasn’t as thorough as I should have been.  I have patches and streaks across my legs, both feet (and I always burn my feet.  Do I learn?  No), and a small patch across my chest that isn’t usually exposed in my santuary tank top.

ST burned too.  Not that I would wish the discomfort on someone, but it was nice to have company.  His shoulders and legs were pretty bad.

We spent most of the day on the boat.  They didn’t catch much, and even less that they could keep.  ST caught a hammer head shark which was pretty neat.  (Thrown back.)  The one time I held the rod for him I told him I felt there was a bite but he disagreed.  When I reeled it in for him, there was a pin fish on the end.  I was pretty sure he’d baited it with a shrimp, but I didn’t say anything.  I let it just dangle by the boat until he noticed.

“Where’d that pin fish come from?”

“I told you I felt a bite!”

“I guess, once again, you’re right.”

At home, ST and his father cleaned the boat while his mother and I had showers.  That was the best shower I’ve had in a long time.  The burns hadn’t really set in yet to sting.  And there’s just something awesome about the clean you feel after a day on salt water.

I made an attempt at studying, but the sun time was starting to set in.  We napped until dinner time.

His parents, by the way, are very nice people and I like them a lot.  He assured me that they “adore” me.  Probably mostly because I can put up with their son.  I don’t get the feeling that they dislike me or anything, but I noticed they didn’t really ask me any questions.  It’s different with my family.  Perhaps some people would call it nosy (and my grandma can certainly get nosy with the questions posed to me when suitors aren’t in the room), but I think it’s just showing an interest in someone. 

But his dad as an amazing smile, and graced me with it a few times.  So I knew I couldn’t be doing so bad.

We were hurting pretty bad by dinner, especially my feet.  After some ice cream, we opted to go to bed early.  At first the thought of sex, even vacation sex, with the sunburns was revolting.  But after some tossing and turning we decided it was just what the doctor ordered to calm us and get to sleep.  We managed somehow.  Amazing what the body is able to do.

The next day we didn’t do much.  His mom tackled the closet where one of the AC units is kept and I caught a hilarious moment where she’d roped his dad into pulling something out and as he tried to step away from the mess of spilled lamp oil, he got a wad of paper towels in his chest.  The look on his face was priceless.

ST and I walked with Busch down the beach a bit, but even that was hard on the burns.  I studied on the porch while he read.  We went to the trading post just to poke around.  Around noon, we packed up and caravaned into Apalachicola to drop the boat off and have lunch.

The drive home was in some ways better.  Busch was exhausted from all his adventures and pretty peaceful.  There wasn’t horrible traffic.  But the drive home is always unsavory from a vacation, and we had to drop Busch off at ST’s cousins, shop for a duffle bag, and get him set to leave for Alabama.  It was after 9:30 when we got home.  That is one long ass day.

In some ways, I wish we’d had time to start teaching me stick.  I know he hated leaving without there being a vehicle here for me to use.  (I pick up a rental this afternoon.)  But I’m glad we didn’t force the issue over our relaxation time.  I drive roughly 300 miles in my weekly schedule and I just couldn’t see a lesson or two on a standard being sufficient for me to be comfortable.

He was up at 5am to catch his flight.  I miss him already.  I have a stressful week and half in terms of school work ahead of me and it’s just not fun when I can’t look forward to some downtime with him in the evening.