Rita is taking me on another family (various family members, including a young boy, 7-ish, who is Josh or Corgan, or KO, or someone named Billy and someone named Teddy.) vacation with them. This time it's a surprise. I'm trying to tell her she can't do it that way, but she insists, and we all get in her car and start driving. north/northeastish. Cleveland, Buffalo.
But we keep going and soon we are at the border and stop for the night.
We are going into Canada to an international airport. Seems strange to me. I mean, I know Canada probably has international airports -- it's not something I've ever thought a whole lot about. And I'm pretty sure CVG is an international, and it's right up the road from us. At least for the purposes of this dream. And there was also Cleveland, but maybe they only go "internationally" to Canada? I don't know.
Maybe it's just cheaper to fly out of Canada with a group of that size. I've heard of people plotting out things like that, and It's something the Rita- Jeanie - Chelle research team might do.
Meanwhile I'm thinking maybe I can visit some of my Canadian friends, although I suspect we may at this time be farther away from Linda than we were at home.
And there was a reason I haven't already just made that drive. I tell Rita, again, that this isn't going to work, because I don't have a passport. I show her where my driver's license is marked "not acceptable for passport or international travel."
Rita says not to worry about it, because they aren't really that particular about it anymore. Especially with a group as large and busy and loud and confusing as ours.
I told her I'd heard the stories, too, but that didn't mean they were true. They could be urban myths. But, okay, whatever.
Then she tells me the secret surprise. We're going to England, and because we're going from Canada my missing passport (!) won't be as much of an issue. Again, this is in a dream; nothing to do with real life circumstances except a smattering of not-believable I-got-away-with-it stories.
So, I'm all happy, planning on visiting friends over there. Yeah, thanks to modern social technology I have friends everywhere. But I keep asking Rita if she's sure, because something just isn't right. When she demands to know what or why, I can't answer her.
Then it occurs to me. I haven't been vaccinated. They absolutely, positively will not admit me without that.
I can't go.
Lots of drama and regret and sorrow on this issue. Rita seems to think I forgot that detail on purpose.
While I'm in the neighborhood, of a sort, I think I'll go visit Tracy, and maybe do my all-across Canada friends and come home through the Pacific Northwest (BC) and visit the places I want to in Washington, and the mixture of friends and family that live in and around Portland, and maybe even dip into California. Rita is letting me take her car home instead of paying for long term parking at the airport.
Before that can happen, the boy decides he can't or won't go, so I can take him home. He is Billy at this point.
Damn, there goes my leisurely drive around the continent. No visiting will be done. I have to take this kid back to his home. He doesn't want to leave the airport, but I bribe him away by offering him a sit-down and eat-in breakfast. (Apparently he's been on enough family trips to really appreciate this.)
So we start driving back through Ohio, staying off the interstate and going south. Or so I think and hope. Because it's already after breakfast time at the food chains, and we are looking for the cozy local diner type of place that won't mind making a big full breakfast for a couple weary travelers, one with way too much energy and too many emotions. Guess there were no IHOPs in that area.
We're driving into a part of a city with narrow streets,perhaps cobbled, tall old buildings, and heavy traffic. We have come down a twisting highway -- can't remember the number, but there were all sorts of crossroads with other numbers into this cityscape, and I am becoming nervous that maybe I'm not going as south as I was thinking I was.
The heavy traffic is all rich expensive cars and the drivers are waving and tooting and smiling and seem to know one another. The road is split into one way parts and the part I'm on looks to be going uphill when we've just come down. This part of Ohio is not supposed to be that hilly.
Trying to pull off or over, I keep bumping into the rich cars. It's annoying to the other drivers, but no one is getting really angry. I'd like to see that happen in real life. Every time I apologize I ask them how to get to Cincinnati, but they are all busy getting back to their drives and no one answers me. I hang bumpers with one old guy. He helps me detach and tells me to get to Cincinnati I have to go back up the hill. I said I'd just come down the hill. Have I been going the wrong way all this time?
I think I have, but I am mumbling and grumbling about it, but after verifying the info with other drivers, decide to do what I was told, and follow the one way trail/road up the hill.
Once I get started, I realize that I have NOT gone wrong -- I am on the same road I've been on and going in the same general direction. I never turned around anywhere, except for the hairpin curves, and if I just keep driving I'll get somewhere.
