In which you get what you ask for, and I had to ask for an adventure.

For the 4th I stood in a wheat field on the east side of town with Landi, my 23-year-old friend who just graduated from culinary school, and burned sparklers while watching the professional shows off on the horizon. We completed celebrating the holiday with 7-Eleven nachos and a few cartoons at her apartment. I was home around midnight.

The next day she texted “Mountain drive?” and I replied, “Sure, why not!” She came to pick me up. When I asked if she was sure her car would make it, she replied that she had no reason to think it wouldn’t.

We tried to take Bindu with us, but I don’t think Landi’s Nova has a firewall in it. The passenger compartment, even with the windows rolled down, was far too hot for a 13-year-old dog. We dropped her off, limp and panting, at my place after running an errand to Landi’s apartment and back.

We bought ice, a gallon of green tea, grapes, and Cheetos at Loney’s and then enjoyed a leisurely drive out past Dixie and up a few thousand feet to Lewis Peak. The girl just kept going and going and going, over gravel and then dirt and then gullies, past dwellings and beyond services, until we were up where nobody lives and we ran out of road. She parked and we took a walk.

It was gorgeous.

When we returned to the Nova, it started right up – unusual because it normally requires three to five attempts – and we began our decent. About 500 yards along, the car died.

And never started again.

Oh, we tried. Landi checked her fluids, banged her air filter a few times, and beat various engine components with an old windshield wiper blade, but while the thing got spark it just wouldn’t turn over.

Neither of us had cell service up there, of course. And while it was cooler up there than it had been in town, it was still pretty damn hot and the car was in the baking sun in the middle of a dirt road so dry it was like walking on the moon, with puffs of fine dust at every step.

And I was wearing Birks and a white dress because I hadn’t gotten the memo about dressing for car trouble.

We walked down the road until Landi’s cell service came in and she called our friend at work. She was put on hold. When Becca finally answered, she was too busy to talk.

We’d decided in the meanwhile that God helps those who helps themselves, and we walked back to the car. When it still wouldn’t start we decided we’d try to push it up the little hill before us, because after that point it was downhill for at least a mile and we figured we might be able to get it started while rolling downhill or at least use gravity to get marginally closer to civilization. And cell phone coverage.

Landi is as strong as on ox, but I’m pretty useless in a dress and Birks. We got the car pushed uphill about three car lengths before giving up. “I’m sorry,” I panted, sucking water out of my water bottle. “But I’m not strong enough to push this thing uphill on a fucking dirt road. We’re gonna have to hike out and call someone to come get us.”

We collected our stuff from the car and left a note on the dashboard and began to walk down the mountain. When we got back to cell service, Landi called our friend again but since she was both at work and without a car, it was mostly just to tell someone about our predicament.

We remembered seeing a vehicle parked at a turn-off on our way up. We decided to see if it was still there, and walked further down the mountain.

We debated our options as we walked. I could call G’ma, but did I really want to get an 86-year-old woman all the way up the damn mountain in 100-degree heat? Would her car even make it up the grade? My brother has a truck, but he was both at work and is unlicensed. Becca would come get us if she could, but not only does she not own a car but she was at work for five more hours. I bet Teh [now ex] BF would come in an emergency, but I’d feel like a jerk relying on his chivalry under the circumstances if I didn’t try every other avenue first. Maybe my uncle would come, but he’s already rescued me once and I didn’t really want to have to put him out again. God, didn’t we know some dude with a truck that would come tow us out?

We were slightly saddened to realize that neither of us really know very many people after living in Walla Walla for two years each.

“Ugh. It’s not there,” Landi announced as we rounded a curve. “That car we passed on the way up is gone.”

“Awesome,” I said, “not. Remind me never to suggest an ‘adventure’ in conjunction with a Sunday drive ever again, okay?”

“Well it’s hardly your faul–” Landi began.

“Vehicle!” I said, and turned to see a big ol’ king cab late model dually come down the mountain lane behind us.

It pulled over beside us, and a guy got out. He was tanned, healthy, grinning one of those “oh you silly girls” grins at us, and he was probably around my age.

“I suppose you saw the Nova,” I quipped.

He laughed. “It’s kind of right in the middle of the road.”

Turns out he’d been up top working on his cabin, and had just decided to drive out to avoid the oncoming storm seeing as how dust gets slippery when rained on and his truck weighs two tons. In spite of what looked like an impending deluge, he took us back up to the Nova and chain-towed it out of the middle of the road to a flat spot. Landi got her work shirts out of it, left a new note on the dash, and locked it up.

Then the guy drove us all the way to my front door. It started raining this side of Dixie, but other than a few fat drops on the windshield and lowering the temperature to just above tolerable, the storm didn’t amount to much.

“Will you let me at least buy you gas for your trouble?” I asked.

“It was on my way,” he said simply.

We thanked him profusely and ran across the yard to jump in my brother’s truck. We drove to Landi’s apartment to commence Operation Get The Nova Off The Mountain, which involved calling a wrecker (the quote was ‘$250 and up,’ which was far lower than I’d expected considering the car was nearly 30 miles away and at 2,000+ feet), watching some cartoons, eating Cheetos, and, finally, with trepidation, calling her mom in Clarkston.

Her mom was pissed, I think. Apparently, Landi has terrible vehicle karma. And she’s starting a new job on Tuesday. Across town.

We went to the bar to see if we could find any help, but before we got anywhere with that project Landi’s uncle called her cell and said he was on his way from Idaho with a trailer and would be picking her up in about three hours.

So we got celebratory tacos from Berny’s for dinner and I got to keep the $200 I’d pledged for a tow truck (and without which I would have been extremely broke for the next couple of weeks). No, it was neither my car nor my fault, but I offered the money with the idea that, as the elder person in the car, I probably should have taken one look out that Nova’s windshield at the level B access sign on a dirt 8% grade and said, “Turn around. Now. This piece of shit has no business being up here.”

But all’s well that ends well, and I was home by nine o’clock in a sweaty, dingy white dress, no worse for wear, and Landi had cavalry on the way.

The rest of the Lewis Peak Adventure photos, should you care to view them, are here.