Gravel in our Travel

I reported already on Alison's Awesome Summer, but this morning our NBC affiliate, WTHR, aired its story on the filming of "The Misadventures of Bindu," and our messy-haired redhead made the cut. So it seemed like I should share the story.

You can see it here. I love her giggle at the end. It's so Alison.

In other news,  Ali drove us down to Brazil Saturday, her first at-the-wheel experience on the Interstate. Traffic was light so that helped, but she still had to deal with semis and other drivers coming up fast behind her. She did really well in both the city and on the highway.

It was a slightly different story when our GPS turned on us and directed us to leave Indiana 59 in our quest to get to a baby shower at Briley and Patrick's house. We'd not been there before, and if I'd only explored a tiny bit, I would have known that it required no gravel in our travel at all.

But I made the mistake of trusting the voice coming from my GPS. We turned onto a county road and Ali learned that not every roadway in America is clearly marked.

We wandered around a bit and found ourselves at an intersection with a road not referenced by the GPS. The numbered county road we were on led to what my rurally-trained eye told me was a driveway.

"Let's try right," I said, thinking that was at least in the direction of where I thought we needed to go. We hadn't gotten far when I decided we needed to double back. We met Cujo turning around in a driveway.

"Uh, Ali," I said. "Drive faster."

She was busy trying not to land us in a ditch, which I guess was a good thing, too, but the dog wasn't looking friendly as it approached. Yeah, we were wrapped in steel, but I had no wish to get Cujo slobber on the windows or to explain claw marks to the Captain.

We went back and through the intersection and found nothing but fields. We turned back again as I wondered if I'd entered the name of the road incorrectly. I'd never heard of a West State Road. Usually, three word-ed streets are county roads. So I changed the GPS to WCR instead of WSR.

We lost our signal, wandered some more and found ourselves back at the Cujo intersection. I mumbled something about being lost in BFE, using the three words of the acronym and taught my teenager a new word. I can already hear the detention message I'm going to get in a few weeks from her school.

Sitting at the now very familiar intersection, Ali said, "Let's just go straight."

She's a scientist. That was the one direction we hadn't tried.

"That's a driveway," I repeated.

"I bet it's a road," she said. "We are in the country."

"It's a dirt path," I said.

"Right and left didn't work," she reminded me.

"I have to pee," I said.

"Well I'm dying of thirst," she responded. "We have to get somewhere!"

We went straight and encountered a shirtless, unfriendly man coming out of a barn. Because it was a driveway.

She hit reverse again, seemingly more concerned about a close encounter with the man than she had been about the rabid dog. Backing up and turning is a new skill for her and she always has to remind herself out loud how to turn the wheel to point the car in the direction she wants. Amped up by thirst and adrenalin, she got out of there -- cleanly -- in record time.

I called my sister, Donna, who we were to meet at Briley's house. She also hadn't heard of WSR 340 and was coming from Brazil. She had the same address I did because I'd given it to her. I told her we'd drive until we got our signal back and let her know.

We found ourselves back on Indiana 59. We called Donna again. She had no clue and also hadn't heard of the WSR.

"Call Nancy," she suggested, another sister.

Nancy confirmed we had the right address all along and that WSR was really a thing. We plugged it in again, and it sent us right back to where we'd been. We waved to Cujo from the safety of our Subaru and eventually emerged onto US 40.

I remember enough about my home area geography to know that Indiana 59 intersects with US 40. If we'd stayed on the original state road, we'd have never gotten lost and been to the party on time. Stupid GPS.

The good news is that Ali and I got our diametrically opposite bodily needs met, we got to see family we hadn't seen in too long and Ali is more comfortable driving backwards.

She later drove Donna's big-ass pickup truck on US 41 on the south side of Terre Haute. The vehicle is larger than my house, so she had a tiny bit of drama turning off the highway where she and Donna met me for dinner. Two lanes of traffic turn into the street she needed and there was a vehicle right next to her as she made her turn. She apparently encroached a little bit into her neighbor's lane.

To her credit, Donna didn't yelp and Ali didn't panic.

But come to think of it, Donna hardly ever orders a cocktail at dinner and she didn't fight the suggestion.

Addendum:  While Ali and I were wandering Indiana, the Captain had another niece, Becca, on a morning whirlwind of shopping.We've been lucky to have Becca stay with us a few weeks while she takes some summer classes. She'll leave us soon to go back to Butler, which will make us all kind of sad.

It's not been too much of an eventful summer, but she had a budgetary trifecta hit. Her phone died and her car needed an oil change. Jeff likes nothing better than bargain shopping, and she and Becca had spent a good portion of Friday night talking about phones.

So they spent the morning first getting an oil change for her car, then phone shopping. Now, Jeff has hearing issues, but even he could hear her brakes grinding, so he forcibly suggested she get her car fixed, too.

The bargain he won for her phone was eaten up by the brake job, but at least she's safer.

Rock star? Check. Movie star? Check. World traveler? Check. I want Ali's life.

Unless you're a Kardashian or some other crazily entitled person, my guess is you will be -- as I am -- jealous of one Alison Reed. Here's what her summer has been so far:

• 10 days in Eastern Europe on a school trip, where she made out with a yellow boa constrictor ala Brittany Spears, ate amazing food and saw amazing sites, tempered by an incredibly emotive visit to Auschwitz;
• 6 days in Maine with her best friend at Auntie Jen's lake house where they spent more time in the water than on land and got to work on their water skiing skills;
• Serving as an extra in a Hollywood movie called "The Miseducation of Bindu." It includes David Arquette and other up-and-coming famous people, and Ali has spent hours and hours on set. 
• She was sitting around waiting one day when the director pointed to her and said, "We need someone to talk to a reporter outside. You! Go." So she did. I flubbed recording it on WTHR and found only this online. Her interview could have been cut, I suppose...



The extras hanging about the school yard.

• Kelly Wilkinson, an Indy Star photographer, snapped her and used the shot above in a 50+ photo gallery that accompanied the story you can get to via the link above.
• Singing on stage with Foreigner. Sure, only one of the original band members is still on tour, but it was really Foreigner. She and some of the Herron High School choir provided backup vocals for "I Want to Know What Love Is." 

  

  She's in the group on the left, but hard to see.

• Taking an overnight trip to Holiday World with friends from school. No chaperones. Yeah, that's coming up next week and both the Captain and I are queasy. Not because we don't trust her. It's just a long time to be on the highway in an SUV full of teenagers. Any of my Evansville peeps want to go shadow them and report in regularly that all is well?

She still has about a month left before she had to report back to school for her (gulp) senior year. She had exceptionally good grades both in school and on her AP tests and finals and she hasn't stepped too far out of line yet in the chores and attitude department so it's getting hard to say no to her.

I'm just saying that this is not how my summers went back in rural Clay County. To be fair, I guess, last year she broke her collarbone to kick off the season. Still. I'm a little green-tinged these days.

Miss Independence

Alison is off with Auntie Jen and Jenna Tokash for a week and who do you think has communicated more with the poor, lonely parents back home?

That's right. My second daughter, Jenna. And mostly because I guilted her into it.

It's all just fine, though, because we know they're safe and having a ton of fun. Alison will jettison technology if she has a chance of getting into water, and as Pleasant Pond is in Jen's back yard, I'll be lucky to hear from Ali until she's waiting to board her plane to come home.

Before the girls went off to Auntie Jen, they helped us out with a community field day, hosted in part by our great friend, Kelsey Taylor.  Follow the link to read about it if you want.

It was the first attempt by the group, and we would have loved to have more people, but it was still a great (albeit hot) day. At one point, an IMPD office came by and was attacked by a toddler/little kid group that had a kiddie pool full of water and some water guns. He was a great sport. I hope he had a dry uniform somewhere because he had just started his shift and was soaked.

We got to spend a little time with the awesome Northern family, who are headed to Charlottesville soon. Karl and Elizabeth's eldest, Jack, has plans of running the country one day, so it makes sense that he get a little history lesson in when he can. He's serious. And he knows a lot about becoming president. So be prepared to send him your vote when the time comes, which could be a little shy of 30 years from now. It would be sooner except for that silly age restriction.

After we got home and showered the sweat off, Jenna straightened Ali's hair. Last year at Jen's, she went a different direction, which apparently gave at least one of them a laugh.

Jenna Tokash: Future Stylist to the Stars

This is us at Taco Bell fueling up for the Stop the Violence Community Field Day

The hair stayed mostly straight overnight, but I'm sure was back to her curly mop once they got out of the water. I'd share a photo with you, but oh yeah, I don't have one!!!

I have had little time to be bitter. I got up early Monday to take a road trip with Deb from WFMS, my country radio music station of choice. We've been Twitter friends for a while, but we channeled Thelma and Louise to get the first taste of Dunkin Donuts' new donut fries and to meet in real life. I didn't tell her until after about my terrible driving reputation.

We got there and back just fine, thank you very much, even thought we ran into a detour and had to wind our way around to find the closest shop and when we got there, the staff had a hard time realizing we didn't just want one packet of five donut fries. We wanted five packets. They thought we were crazy. I think they were mesmerized by our lipstick.

I'm generally risk averse when it comes to meeting people I've liked from afar. You never want to find out your favorite actress or singer is a creep, plus you don't want to come off like a stalker. But it was fun. The Captain even tuned in. One day I'll get him to love country music, too...

Now it's the 4th of July and Jeff and I will likely head down to an Indians game. We took a long bike ride this morning so I might have to nap before. Hope your week is awesome and your 4th of July is safe but fun. As I type, Jeff is dragging out the remnants of his fireworks collection. He's had to take  a few years off from blowing stuff up but I fear for the neighborhood dogs tonight...

Come by Canterbury Park if you're in the area after dark... I'm pretty sure someone will be breaking the law down there.