A Road Less Travelled

So there I was, looking forward to going to a used bookstore with Raquel to celebrate life returning to normal with a book-buying spree. And suddenly, I find myself being kidnapped. My captor, Raquel, informed me that I would not be released until her demands were met. I was to accompany her to Springfield, spend a day not thinking about children or laundry or anything domestic. I was to journey to one or more of the used bookstores she had found in Springfield. At the used bookstores I was to spend a lot of money and have fun. I was then to spend the night in the Springfield Hilton and I was not to hurry back home the next day. Seeing as I am sitting at the computer at home you can assume that my captor’s demands were met. We had a lot of fun. We had been planning for a while to go to a used book store and celebrate so when I got into the van and Raquel handed me a ransom note complete with the letters cut out of a magazine I thought it was a joke. I’m still not sure they were serious. We managed to get turned around and heading in the wrong direction before we even left Peoria. We weren’t at all lost, you understand, we just couldn’t find how to get to the interstate through all the construction. When we finally got onto the interstate we were really giggly and I was driving so we wouldn’t die if Raquel had a coughing fit. Yes, I drove myself to Springfield while I was being kidnapped. We get to Springfield and it looks a lot like Peoria. I was convinced we had entered a space-time loop and we had driven away from Peoria only to return to it. There was no escape. I wouldn’t be allowed to leave my duties. I was going to be trapped in Peoria forever! Something resembling reason returned as the scenery started to change and look less like Peoria. We managed to get to downtown Springfield without any more troubles with the space-time continuum, but then we circled the block containing the hotel and the parking garage several times trying to find where we were supposed to enter. What is with cities and one-way streets? Every city I have tried to drive through has had this infatuation with one-way streets. Do they think that if they confuse you they will be able to drain your will and you won’t make trouble? Do they hope to break your spirit with their one-way streets and so you won’t feel oppressed by the towering buildings? Well, Springfield, it didn’t work! My spirit was not cowed! Well, not much. So, anyway we find our way into the parking garage, almost scrape the roof of the van on the ceiling and finally find a place to park. With heads held high we sally forth to find the used books stores. It was Raquel’s role to read the map and make sure we didn’t get lost. She did pretty well- we only went the wrong direction three maybe four times. It was my role to drive and to look as touristy as possible. I made sure I kept pointing and gawking. I enjoyed my role, but I completely forgot about it when we found the bookstore. It was called the Grand Prairie Archives and it was housed in an old building right across this square from the old state capital building. It was wicked awesome. We kept finding more rooms full of books. The store felt old and it smelled slightly musty and very much of books. Right up front were the old books that look like they would disintegrate if you touch them and off in the backwaters of the store were the paperbacks we were looking for. I spent most of the money I had set aside for books. I now have ten Louis L’Amour Sackett books. I am trying to have more than Raquel does, but I haven’t reached that goal. Hopefully, I will soon. Outside the store they had some tables set up with books on clearance. While we were picking through them a man rode up on his bike and started looking through books. He glanced over at us and immediately went into the by now to be expected declarations of surprise and wonder at how long Raquel’s hair is. Except after the regular conversation happened he kept talking about it. He seemed to be convinced that Raquel really didn’t want her hair, but she hadn’t worked up the guts to chop it off. He repeatedly said things like “You should donate that hair. Lotta wigs could be made out of it. There are lots of needy children would like that hair. You just haven’t decided to reach for the scissors, huh? I know some girls say their hair gives them headaches. Those headaches never go away. You should cut it off now before it’s too late. You should cut it before that happens or you’ll be sorry.” He would stop talking for a minute and we would keep looking through the books and then he would just start talking again. He kept it up for maybe ten minutes. I was surprised it was that important to him. He didn’t seem to understand that Raquel actually wanted long hair. He seemed to think it was just a bother to her and of course she didn’t want it. That day and the next day I kept saying, “Wow, you have long hair! You should cut it off now before you get headaches.” and she would glare at me. Hehehehe. After that bookstore we went to another bookstore a few blocks away. The books seemed expensive, but then we found how the sale books were marked and we were more kindly disposed to the proprietor. We ended up talking about kid books that full-grown adults read and enjoy with someone who was there. It was very different than the first store we went to, but it was still nice. When we left it was raining hard. We started walking back to the hotel then we turned around and started walking back to the hotel in the right direction. I was wearing sandals and after I had walked through a couple of puddles (God wouldn’t have put them there if we were supposed to go around!!) my sandals kept trying to slide off my feet. So I took them off and walked around downtown Springfield barefoot. We checked into the hotel looking like drowned rats and inept rats at that. There was a large group of people in the lobby and what with the noises and the echoes we had trouble hearing the man behind the desk. Combined with the fact that neither of us had done this before and we felt quite foolish. When we got to our room I immediately dumped my stuff on the floor and jumped on the bed. After we settled in we decided to go watch a movie. We got the van out of the parking garage and headed out to the mall. We then discovered that to get to the mall we actually needed to the other way on a one-way street and so we floundered around for a while until we found a road Raquel recognized from the map. We found the mall without much more trouble. We watched the Fantastic Four, which was fun, but not all that great, and then we went to a grocery store to buy water. After that we headed back to the hotel. Then we turned around and headed back to the hotel. Anything that happened after this point is not worth recording because it was just two very tired girls on vacation acting silly. So I won’t report it. I even won’t report what I promised Raquel I wouldn’t though I will note that if the price is right, well, who knows what could slip out of my mouth. I slept in the next morning. It was very exciting. And then I ate breakfast I didn’t have to cook. We both avoided the eggs and the oatmeal. After breakfast we wandered around looking at stuff. We went to the old state capital building and admired the furniture and the architecture. We didn’t manage to avoid the public school classes that were touring it that day, but, hey, nothing’s perfect. We went to the new state capitol building and tried to figure out if the mesh hung around the balcony could hold a person who jumped off. I sat on the bronze horse outside the hotel, walked in the fountain at the new state capitol building and stood on top of a marble something or other. We found a store called Studio on 6th that was located on 6th street. It was very cool. It was a store where all different kinds of artisans can sell their works. I bought a pottery mug that demanded I buy it the first time I looked at it. I picked it up and said, “Raquel, I think I’m going to buy this mugâ€? and she said, “I think you’re going to, too.â€? So I walked over to the counter with my mug and said, “I think I’m going to buy this.â€? I drank tea out of the mug this morning and it was most enjoyable. We wandered around for a while looking at stores and we stopped at a café and Raquel had some cocoa and I had bottle of juice I am ashamed to admit is called Naked Fruit. It was most delicious. After the café we decided it was about time to leave. We went back to the van and headed back home. Then we found the road we wanted on the map and we turned around and headed in the right direction. We took the back way home and it was most enjoyable. My cell phone rang and it was Theresa asking if we had died. I, of course, said we had. We chatted for a while and then I said I should probably get off the phone because I was driving and she went as spastic as I’ve ever heard her get. A child came up and asked her if she could say hello and Theresa said, “NO, SHE’S DRIVING!!â€? I said goodbye and hung up very shortly after that. We made it back home without getting lost again and life returned to normal. When I look back on the past two days I’m not sure what exactly we talked about. We talked almost constantly, but I’m not sure exactly what we talked about. Where we went and what we did sounds kinda boring when you just say it, but I had a lot of fun. Thank you very much to everyone who made my vacation possible. I very much enjoyed being kidnapped. I went on vacation! TeeHee!