041805 - ABQ I
The lady and I are in Albuqiwuhrwuyque right now, taking a few days to get to know the city and learn about what it has to offer.
After seeing my driver's license, the late-twenties clerk at the rental car desk informed us that she was from Fort Wayne, IN, and had attended Ball State back in the day. "Albuquerque's a really great city; the biggest difference you'll notice is the water."
Can't say I have yet. Barely two hours after our plane touched down, the National Weather Service issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, with a side of Tornado Warning - a funnel cloud touched down just south of the city. We were just praying that it wouldn't hail; we pay any car damage resulting from acts of God. (Which is why we are also praying against the off-chance of smiting or Apocalypse.)
Rain on vacaction is kind of a theme for us. And since our honeymoon, there's one particular episode that invariably comes with it.
We spent the first week of our honeymoon in Ireland. We were expecting some rain during the trip - everyone who had been there mentioned it - but we what we didn't expect was 40-year flooding to go with it. It didn't bother us much during our first couple of days; we were in the mountainous Ring of Killarney at that point, so the worst we experienced were some muddy trails.
But our gameplan had us crossing the south of the island from Killarney to Waterford on the following day, with some time spent in Cork along the way. We started off around mid-morning, timing the trip to reach Cork around early afternoon. The forecast called for heavy rain all day along the southern portion of the island, but we were optimistic - the rain was only sprinkling lightly as we left.
As we got closer, though, it started raining harder and harder, to the point where we had to yell to hear each other. Some closed thoroughfares forced us to take some soggy backroads, and we had no idea how close we were to Cork until the forest disappeared around us, and we were dumped onto the main drag of central Cork. At lunchtime rush hour. The river through central Cork was just a few inches below the banks, and wide, deep potholes filled to the brim with brackish rainwater were all through the streets, unavoidable.
Luckily, we had the Renault Scenic - the European SUV.
We powered our way through the traffic and up a hill to the local mall, where we got a bite of lunch, arranged our B+B for Waterford, and got the lady a heavier jacket to match the weather. Looking at the sheets of rain falling from the sky, we voted that Cork was a bust, and decided to high-tail it to Waterford before Cork got flooded out.
This was much easier said than done. Cork was an old city - the roads were haphazardly laid out, and the local government had made many of them one way in recent years, making our tour map completely useless. We were on our own.
We managed to get back down to the main drag, and worked our way to the east side of the city, trying to see any sign of the exit onto the nearby highway. Caught by a couple of odd one-ways, we ended up circling the University College, the sidewalks packed with umbrella-carrying students between classes. On our way out of the college area, we finally spotted a sign for the exit, a road curving around a student union off to our left. We were in the far right hand lane, and reaching the exit involved cutting off two lanes of heavy traffic in about five seconds.
So, we went for it.
Cars slammed on their breaks, horns honked at the crazy foreigners with no driving skill cutting them off. We jumped in and out of the water-filled streets, waves of brown liquid thrown everywhere. We could see that we were in the correct lane, but that was about all we could see.
Suddenly, the car dropped out from under us, and just as suddenly came back up. There was a huge "whoosh!" and ten foot columns of water spread from both sides of the car.
We had just hit the mother of all potholes - and doomed the passers-by with our sidewalk tsunami.
We heard the impact a second later, as horror-movie screams of shock and surprise echoed through the buildings. I glanced in the mirror to see three sopping girls looking themselves over - and glaring daggers at us. They had managed to hold off the rain, but our muddy tidal wave had completely soaked them through.
My immediate gut reaction was to feel awful. We had just ruined each of those girls' days because we were in a hurry. But that was before the slapstick humor element began to sink in. It was only water. They got soaked. Life sucks sometimes. But that can be funny. Sure, it's raining on all our vacations, but it could be worse. No one has soaked us in brackish street water. Yet. There's always tomorrow.