Mike and the Mechanics

Longest trip to the river. Ever. Also, unexpectedly pleasant.

Cruising along Route 360 at 60 mph, my car dies and I somehow manage with all my strength to guide it into a market located inconveniently across the median strip. It would be traumatic if the exact same thing hadn't happened 15 months ago.

Inside the market, I ask the clerk if there's a garage nearby. Before she can respond, the guy in line in front of me buying cigarettes - two packs of Marlboro Reds, hard packs, natch - turns around and gestures to me. "Let's go have a  look at it."

Some 20 minutes later, he has used a fresh can of Coke to clean the corrosion off my battery connections and topped off my antifreeze tank with the bottle in his trunk, but is no closer to figuring out why my car gave out.

So we pile into his car so he can drive me the half a mile to Cassidy's Garage to see what they can do for me. Along the way, he introduces himself as Linwood, a local guy. "My wife lives in Chesterfield County but I don't much like it out there, so I live here."

Don't like there or don't like her? I wonder but I don't ask.

At the garage, he introduces me to the owner, Mike, so I can explain my dilemma, but not before Linwood explains what he's already done to try to help me. Because we're in the wilds of Aylett, a tow-truck driver is conveniently located right next to Cassidy's and Mike assures me it'll be no time until he fetches my car.

But Linwood's worried that I'll be bored in the meantime, so he offers to take me back to my car to get my stuff so I'll have something to read in the interim. When he returns me to the garage, it's with the assurance that I'll be fine with these guys at the garage while he goes off to take care of some business. "I can vouch for ev'ry one of 'em," he says. "Good guys."

I have two choices for where to set up camp: the little office with the TV blaring and grimy calendars from 2008 on the wall or a cracked and sagging wooden bench out in front of the office next to a fading statue of a black bear holding a fish atop its head that reads, "Welcome."

Without hesitation, I opt for the great outdoors. The bench leans against a wall, so it'll be a fine place to read, there's a cooler for a footstool (Linwood jokes, "Let's see if there's any beer in it for you," before opening it, only to say, "Naw, I was just kidding" when we find nothing but water) and, luckily for me, it's a gorgeous day to be outside, cloudy but warm, breezy but hinting at humid.

A beach day, except I'm sitting in a grassy field in front of a garage six car lengths off of 360.

From my bag, I pull out Sunday and Monday's Washington Posts and proceed to get lost in news and features, looking up only when the tow truck shows up with my wounded car atop it. The timing is off though, because shortly, Mike and another mechanic gather up their lunches and leave the premises.

While I'd never begrudge a man an off-premise lunch, I had hoped to be at my friend's house at the river by now. But with nothing I can do about it, I move on to my book "Five Sisters" and speed through the last 80 or so pages, stopping only to eat the banana and clementine I have with me.

Once the guys are back, they take turns looking at my car, trying to figure out its malady. Clearly, they are flummoxed. Lunch is a Lance peanut bar purchased from a cardboard box display in the office. I leave $1 in the slotted box and hope that the sugar and peanuts have held up since the last time the Lance salesman was by.

I'm into my third hour at Cassidy's when I finish my book and pick up my brand spankin' new copy of Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" and get immediately drawn into the Maycomb world of the Finch family. This may not be the book that won Lee the Pulitzer, but the writing is every bit as beautiful.

I get up to stretch my legs and wander over to my car where two mechanics are puzzling over it. I mention that the last time this exact thing happened, it had to do with my distributor cap and a loose screw in the rotor. They're too busy to answer and I return to my bench to read.

Honestly, other than the beach, I can't recall the last time I've had this much time to sit around and read for hours on end. It's an unexpected afternoon, but except for the delay in being with my friend, a perfectly lovely one. The air is soft and wanna-be damp, meaning my sunglasses have a constant film on them, my feet are up and I'm lost in a good book.

Eventually Linwood returns with his 11 year old granddaughter Savannah Hope in tow, back to check on me and my progress. If there isn't any, he's willing to drive me back to Richmond. But the guys have finally determined the problem: the screw in my rotor had come loose. Again.

In trying to assess the problem, the screw had fallen out of the hole and on to the grass below. They push the car backwards, the better to search for the screw in the wire grass. Futile. Or as the guy with more teeth missing than in his mouth observed, "Like trying to find a needle in a haystack."

Mike saves the day by getting a new screw and sawing it to the proper length. Another guys secures it with Locktite. They tell me it needs half an hour to cure. I go back to the bench and Atticus Finch.

Savannah spots the beach towel and straw hat in my car and tells me she guesses that I'm going to the beach. I tell her I'm headed to the river, not the ocean. "I've never seen the ocean," she says plaintively. "I've never even been out of Virginia." I assure her she will and hope I'm right.

Once my noble steed is deemed safe to travel, I pay and the guys come out to say goodbye to me after five hours in their midst. "I'm really sorry to have inconvenienced you," Mike tells me, sounding like he's truly bothered.

No, no, it was a beautiful day to sit outside and read, I tell him, grateful that the problem is at long last solved. It wasn't where I intended to spend the afternoon, but I could've done far worse than reading on a bench in the grass.

Then it's on to my girl crush.

When I pull up at my friend's house 50 minutes later, she and her husband are just returning from a walk with their exuberant dog, having all but given up on me. I drop my stuff in the guest house and they're soon plying me with wine and questions about my adventure as we sit facing the river.

Since a girl can't last forever on a peanut bar, they graciously move dinner up a little and he's soon grilling perfectly seasoned planked salmon while she and I bond over making a big salad featuring avocado, bacon, cucumbers and tomatoes.

Over more wine and dinner, we discuss the current big murder trial in the county - aptly characterized as a perfect storm of cocaine and booze - and how its sordid details have captured the locals' attention. Strawberries, pound cake and whipped cream follow before we move outside to admire the tide.

My host had already informed me of the unusually high tides they'd been having all week and even a couple hours before high tide, we were already marveling as the river began swallowing deck ladders and lower platforms. We were willing the sun to stay up long enough for us to see the pinnacle, but it it had already gotten cool enough that we womenfolk had donned wraps.

Our very masculine host reveled in the stiff breeze of what can only be called manly weather. But it's August, so I don't want any stinkin' manly weather. I want warmth.

I always love hearing stories about the locals (and not just the murderers) and tonight was rewarded with tales of Cyrus, a local whose accomplishments included being the sergeant at arms at the local Moose lodge, the town drunk, the landscaper for the county courthouse and the area's unofficial mayor.

That's a resume most men can only aspire to. Someday I hope to meet Cyrus.

Once there was enough wine, we had to discuss our first meeting where my friend had barfed on her dog. Tonight, she offered rationale for her behavior. "I think he kind of like it," she said. "He was licking it off."

After laughing hysterically at her reasoning, I shared that I had once thrown up on a fourth grade classmate named Mark in the backseat of his parents' car on our way home from a party. All I could remember him saying about it was, "All of a sudden, there was something warm on my leg."

Tonight, my handsome host says, "Yea, now he trolls the Internet looking for woman willing to throw up on him." I may have ruined Mark, but it wasn't intentional.

Humor will always make a guest who was five hours late forget all about her convoluted day.

When I go to bed, it's on the screened-in porch of the little guest house and only after another stint with my book while my hosts' house goes dark. I'm awakened at 2:30 by thunder and lightening, but no rain is making its way on to the porch, so I lay there happily enjoying the bursts of light and steady rain.

I might as well be glamping for how comfortable and dry I am when everything around me is wet and dripping. When I finally wake up after ten hours of sleep, the rain has stopped and there's every sign it'll be a nice day after all.

We take a long walk after breakfast seeking out the white farmhouse of a neighbor (don't find it). We go to the pool at Yankee Point Marina, having it all to ourselves (though the umbrellas are locked in the ladies' room). Later, we wash off sweat and chlorine under blue skies in her enormous outdoor shower.

Once we get hungry, we head over to the Ottoman Ferry to catch it to go to the Corner in Lively. It's a four car ferry but it arrives in front of us with only one car on it and that car drives off the ferry, makes a U-turn and gets back on it behind us.

What the what?

Despite the sign suggesting strongly that you remain in your car during the ferry ride, I get out and proceed directly to the car that's making its second ferry run. Surely they didn't make a wrong turn?

In the only other car on the ferry are two tiny bird-like white-haired women. Saying I'm curious about their motivation for consecutive ferry rides, I ask what they're up to.

One giggles. "We went to a missionary meeting and then to lunch," she says. Well, that was a good day, I point out, not because I mean it but because my mother taught me to be polite to my elders.

"Then we took the ferry twice and now it's a perfect day," she finishes, smiling ear to war.

This granny is my spirit animal. Perfect days are wherever you find them, girl crush conversations and unexpected reading afternoons included.

And screw loose screws.

I Like How the Day Sounds

These are days you'll remember
Never before and never since, I promise,
will the whole world be warm as this...

Tuesday morning I awoke to the kind of e-mail that makes you smile at a screen.

"Any chance you could come visit tomorrow (Wed)? We can hang out...spend the night? I know it's late notice. Think about it! You don't need to bring anything but a toothbrush!"

This from the woman I'd just met Sunday night at a crab feast at her colorful and stylish cottage on the northern neck.

You can probably guess how fast I accepted an invitation to the river for a couple of days.

I don't want to say I was excited about the trip, but I woke up at 6:15, laid there for an hour and finally realized I was too keyed up to go back to sleep and got up.

This from the person whose earliest waking time is usually 9ish and, more likely, 10ish.

Knowing how beautifully appointed her house is, I shouldn't have been the least bit surprised at the picture perfect day she'd ordered up: sunny, low humidity and the bluest of skies.

Arriving mid-morning after only a slight detour (of course I got lost for a short bit), we immediately took up residence on the deck overlooking the dock and river.

Stretched out under an enormous umbrella only slightly bluer than the sky, on lounge chairs only slightly less blue than the sky, we proceeded to talk as only two women born a year apart and with equivalent amounts of life experience can.

Since we'd been strangers just three days before, we covered every base from our old-fashioned childhoods (can you say crinolines?) through high school (pants, at long last!) and into adulthood with all the unexpected twists and turns of adulthood.

Memories tumbled out of both of us. A lot of Venus and Mars stuff. About the balance of power in a relationship.

It was a blast to discover how much we had in common and not just a disdain for sleepwear although goodness knows I appreciate a kindred soul.

We broke camp long enough to devour BLT salads she whipped up and brought to the deck before resuming our lounging to learn more about each other.

Okay, so maybe I had a little bit of a girl crush.

Mid-afternoon she asked what I wanted to do and graciously indulged my quest to ride the Ottoman ferry, something I'd been unable to do Sunday because the ferry doesn't run then.

Much to our surprise, it wasn't running yesterday either because the tide was so high, but at least I can say I tried. Again.

Someday my ferry will come.

Back at the cottage, we took a walk down Cow Shed lane where she showed me the old shed that used to house a thriving riverfront business .

Fifty cents bought you admission tot he nearby pool and $1 got you a night in one of the log cabins I could just see through the pine trees.

Best of all were the stories about the old shed back when it was a dance hall with bar stools made of saddles and weekly dances.

After too much fighting between male customers over girls, the Shed instituted a rule that men were only admitted if they had a date.

Because we know how men settle down when they're under the influence of a woman.

But since the dance hall days were long over, we were happy to accept her husband's invitation when he called as we were sipping limeades, asking to take us out to dinner.

And since girls gotta shower before being taken out, that meant I got a chance to take advantage of the roomiest, most attractive outdoor shower I've ever seen.

With the blue sky overhead providing accent color to the yellow and white shower room (stall is too small a word for this place), I took my time like I never do showering inside.

If you ask me, the world would be a happier place if more people showered outside.

Clean and dressed, we took glasses of Picpoul de Pinet to the deck to await the arrival of her husband, our collective date.

The drive to Reedville resulted in my first real look at the quaint town I had been in once, but only to catch a boat. This time, we took a slow drive to admire the Victorian and older elaborate houses that lined the main drag.

At the Crazy Crab, we got waterfront seats on the deck with a view of huge fishing boat masts and boats bobbing gently nearby.

The nearest boat was named "Love's Last Episode," a fitting title, we decided, for true love.

It was our server's first night and she barely looked old enough to bring us wine and Arrogant Bastards, but she did so she must have been older than we could tell.

She did a fine job of bringing us all kinds of fresh seafood: mussels, steamed shrimp, crab cake on fried green tomatoes, hush puppies and slaw.

Midway through the meal, another young girl approached us, asking if we wanted popcorn.

Not sure why we were being given  snack food mid-meal, we happily accepted nonetheless and a basket of popcorn soon showed up.

With a sweeping view of Cockrell's Creek and the orange setting sun, we took advantage of having male company to talk about relationships, both beginnings, endings and restarts.

My friends dated for years before breaking up, then spent a few years dating others before reuniting.

They now refer to the period apart as "the terrible awful," a phrase I find very romantic coming from them both.

Somehow the subject of music led to his penchant for a satellite radio Italian contemporary music station, music he finds sexy but not distracting.

"When Italian contemporary comes on, I know what's next," my friend said, making me laugh out loud.

Dessert was creme brulee and chocolate pots de creme under a dusky sky, pushing us solidly into stuffed territory. We left full and happy after such a pleasant and talkative evening.

I'd been given a choice of three beds to spend the night in and chose the one on the guesthouse porch, a twin bed under a ceiling fan and inches away from one of the three screened walls.

With the breeze whispering through the trees just outside, I fell asleep on the porch bed and slept like a rock until a cardinal alighted on the nearby picket fence this morning and began singing me awake.

After breakfast we took a walk down Queenstown Road to find the commemorative stones where local lore claimed that John Rolfe had first set foot.

No trespassing signs stopped us not long before the river, so we had to imagine it after all.

Today's plan was to take a ride in the boat and it turned out to be a glorious day for it because the river was almost smooth as glass under a cloudless sky.

We started out and toward Irvington and in no time, spotted dolphins nearby. Within seconds, one grazed the boat next to where I sat.

Jumping up to see them better, we powered down the boat and began, well, stalking them, allowing them to lead us, follow us or just frolic for our delight.

My friends said they'd never seen dolphins out there on all their boat rides, so I felt privileged to have been along when it happened.

After a while, it seemed as if the dolphins were playing with us, staying underwater for a bit and then popping up incredibly nearby, dipping far under the boat and coming up on the other side, entertaining us constantly.

Scads of pictures were taken as they rose out of the water in unison, so close we could hear the sound of them breathing as they broke water, impossible when you watch them from the beach at the ocean.

We followed, snapping pictures all the way to and under the White Stone bridge, where the bridge above created a silver and blue metallic reflection on the barely rippling surface of the river.

We passed a midnight blue sailboat looking quite patriotic with white sails trimmed in red.

They pointed out Merroir and the red-roofed Tides Inn with yachts docked in front of it. You could almost smell the money from where we were.

But natural beauty aside, the dolphins were our main focus and honestly, the delight we took in their antics was no less after an hour and a half than when they first began.

It had been so unexpected. They were so close. It was such a random thing. We were so lucky.

Eventually we returned to the dock for lunch and one last adventure: my first ride on a jet ski.

Taking the rear-facing position behind them, we sprinted around the river, even making a loop around the Ottoman Ferry in progress from shore to shore.

I'll ride you yet, Ottoman, she vowed shaking her fist at the quaint little boat making its way along at a snail's pace.

Back at the cottage, sadly it was time for me to pack and leave.

You lose track of time at this magic little place, not just because there aren't clocks to remind you of it, but because the days last so nicely with nothing more to do than relax and enjoy whatever is happening (or not happening).

If I were the type to conserve words (as if), I could have done a post that said, "Went to river. Got to know fabulously interesting and beautiful woman and the adoring love of her life. Dinner out. Boat ride."

But where's the fun in that?

...These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break
These days you might feel a shaft of light make its way across your face
And when you do, you'll know how it was meant to be