When we finally get to civilization in Blanding, I just feel so... out of place. Disoriented. I pull up to the pump at the Canyon Country Bowling and Fuel Center... wait, wut?
That's right, we pull up to a combination bowling alley/fueling center (talk about making you feel disoriented). At this point I'm not 100% sure I'm at a real place. We just came through yet an entirely different type of epic terrain on the drive from Lockhart-Blanding, so my mind is already having to process quite a bit of new info, even more now that I'm in civilization.
(I almost certain this really is a real place, I found them later on Facebook)
So I'm at the pump and it isn't working. I try my card every possible direction in the reader, but it doesn't work. Then I notice the sign to pay inside. So I go inside and have to wait and am having a surreal experience with the Indians in line. My sense of time is warped (or it could have been the town's sense of time is warped) and it seems to take two hours to process the few people in line.
So I leave my card with the cashier and go start the pump. I'm washing my filthy windows when I hear an exotic,
very feminine voice asking me something. It's like when you are dreaming and you hear someone talking in reality and it totally jacks with your dream. Except I wasn't dreaming. I'm snapped out of my surreal reality by some hawt, exotic, can't quite place the breed... supermodel-looking babe. And she's asking me questions.
We've only been away from civilization for a week, but we've already started to form our own mini-civilization, with our own code of conduct and we've practically developed our own vocabulary.... it will be difficult to re-assimilate back into the lives we left a week ago. And now I'm in surreality with Indians and a supermodel that speaks an exotic form of English.
I have evolved into some hybrid creature - half homeless hobo that sleeps in my truck/half upscale, fine living, filet-eating, peño-popping, wine and fancy coffee and craft beer connoisseur, and I fully look and smell the hobo part.
So I feel really out of place here.
Anyway, she must be having a similar experience, because she can't figure out the card reader either and she's asking for my help. Once I snap back into the first dimension and figure out what's going on, I can explain the process.
Andy is equally perplexed and comes over to see if he is still dreaming too. He chats her up and finds out that she is from Israel and has been out here exploring Canyonlands and is heading to NorCal next week. I think they exchange numbers or call signs; I've handed her off to Andy, and she's his responsibility at this point.
