The Grand Adventure

Kevin and I began our trip back to Billings on Sunday pulling my car behind his truck on a car dolly we rented from UHaul. With this particular car hauling device you can't back up. You have to pull through.
Kevin and I stopped at Deter Brother's in Lindsay for BBQ with my parents, and before we headed back out we had to stop at the Mayor's house (not kidding, the real Mayor of Lindsay). Lindsay is a small town and they get people to stay there by tricking them. It's like the Hotel California, a lovely place and once inside you can never leave, or so it seemed. Kev and I tried to find a roundy-round to pull through but all we got were dead-end streets. So with my Altima attached, we went four wheeling through a hay field. It was funny, and while bumping along we laughed and said, "What a beginning to our grand adventure."

Before getting into Amarillo, where we were going to go to a 'Dilla's game, it began to rain. We put the dog into the cab of the truck, and Katie texted the game was canceled. Later, We pulled into the Ambassador hotel off I-40 around 7:30 pm. After closing the curtains to the window, which looked out onto our Truck/car, I got in the shower at 7:35 ( I remember looking at the clock trying to time my shower so Kevin wouldn't grump about taking too long.) At 7:55, I told Kevin: "Hey, I've got to go lock my car before we meet Katie and Tim in the restaurant." I walk out and open the driver side door of my car and then I hear, "Excuse me is this your truck?" I look up and see two hotel staff members standing on the passenger side of Kevin's truck. I think, "Oh, we probably can't park here and take up all this space." so I say, "Yes, do we need to move?" To which the male replies, "No, you've been robbed."
I walk over and see the passenger side rear window smashed and I go over to my car, which was unlocked the entire time, open, press the lock, and shut the door. I look up and there is Kevin, "Hey, Come here." I motion with my hand. Kevin looks at me not quite understanding what I want. "Come here, We've been robbed." Maybe the shock didn't allow me to put the proper emotion into it so Kevin is still unsure what I'm talking about. I should mention that while this is happening the lady who works at the hotel says about 40 million times, "You should neva leave them valuables in yo car, sho nuff gonna get robbed if you do." To which I respond, "We never do." Never except this time. Them Valuables, as she so quaintly put it, were Kevin's laptop, passport, checkbook, and my Garmin. I found out once we got to Billings that the perps (yeah like the lingo) also ganked my bag that had my mail, a cool family photo (of my mom in a blond wig and my dad with some major pork chop side burns) and one of my all time favorite books.

Thanks to an Australian visitor to Amarillo, there is an eye-witness report of 3Caucasians, 1 skinny meth head girl, and 2 dudes. The stupid girl left DNA, Blood, on the car when she was rifling through our center console.

Kevin acts fast and closes all his accounts puts his identity theft protector in motion. The next morning we were lucky enough to find a shop who replaced the broken window in an hour and we were on our way. I couldn't wait to get out of Amarillo. Did I mention it smells like shit there? Yeah, you can smell the feed lots when the wind is right.

Outside of Dalhart, Kevin gets a call from Wellsfargo informing him some guy is trying to cash a check for $525. "He's a criminal, call the cops, arrest his ass." Kevin says to the bank manager. He does and they do. The man was stupid enough to make the check payable to himself, and present his ID to the bank, all while his sweet honey crack head was in the car. Amarillo PD shows up with Kevin's favorite T.V. show, COPS, in tow. I don't know what's better, that these two miscreants were caught or that it was on tape.

I was proud of Kevin and how he handled himself. He didn't lose it. I would have. I was plenty pissed and sick at heart when I discovered my belongings were gone as well, but I'm sure my mom has a copy of that photo some where, and thank God Ernest Hemingway was well circulated I can get another copy of my book. AS for our bank acounts no harm done.

We made it to Denver that night and decided to celebrate the kharmic capture of those theiving bastards. We had a nice dinner at Del Frisco's and our toast for the eveing was: "Here's to COPS, and Our Grand Adventure."