TRIPPIN' PROMPT TUESDAY

I had heard about the PromptTuesday posted by San Diego Momma every week and was moved to post this week:

I ask that you write about a trip or an excursion that left you changed in some way. Did you conquer a fear on your trip? Learn something about yourself? Learn something about another person? Break up? Get together? Consider hospital time for the largest walking blister this side of Manhattan?

In May of 1980, I was 3 years out of college and was manager of a restaurant in Oakland. I enjoyed the work but was getting restless. I was searching for my next move. I had done some career counseling and testing at Stanford University which had been pretty inconclusive. I thought I might go to graduate school - maybe law school.

I had been dating around. No major relationships. One of the guys in my life was an old friend from high school who lived in Washington state. We first got together at our 5 year high school reunion, and got together several times a year when he was in town. I am not sure why he heated up a bit on our relationship, but he invited me to go visit him in Washington and "see how we feel about things." So I went.

I cooked him meals, I met his friends, visited the school where he taught and coached football. It was nice, I felt that we were getting along well. So I was floored when, Saturday night after a nice dinner out he said he didn't think we were going to "make it." It seemed like he knew before I got there that he wasn't really serious. I wasn't crushed, but I was not happy.

Sunday morning we decided to go to the store and get picnic stuff and go to the park before I had to go to the airport. It was a bright sunny day, but while we were at the store, huge dark clouds began to roll through. While we were in line, someone said that Mt. St. Helens had erupted and the clouds were ash from the mountain. We got out of line and added to our provisions, checked out and headed back to his place. By that time the ash was not just in the clouds, it was falling everywhere, coating everything. It looked like a very dense fog - but it was dry and puffed up like fine dust when cars drove by.

We turned on the TV and called the airport and it was very clear that I wouldn't be flying out that afternoon - or any time soon. The ash was acidic and grainy and dangerous for engines. We made the best of the awkwardness which had decinded after his pronouncement of the evening before. We were unable to leave the apartment for 2 more days. We drank a lot. I remember sitting on the floor playing one Beatles album after another, singing along. I remember wishing that he hadn't said what he said -that it could have been very romantic.

I flew home a few days dater, applied to law school in San Diego and met the man who would become my husband.