Another Adventure

Saturday, August 23, 2008 – 11:25 A.M. As things turned out yesterday, I unexpectedly went adventuring again. (This is starting to be a bad habit.)   My sister (Alice) and I had agreed to meet at a bookstore named Border Books, which is located at a new place named Meadows Park Mall. We were to meet one another at 11 A.M. I was driven there (or at east thought I had been driven there) by Access-A-Ride. The driver dropped me off and then left.   After I had been there an hour and Alice had still not shown up, I got this funny feeling that something was not quite right. I started examining my surroundings, and was surprised to see that I was actually waiting in font of a closed, and completely cleared out, former Border Book Store. I was not too happy at this turn of events.   I decided to roll around the mall, thinking that maybe I was just dropped off at the wrong entrance. Instead of a mall, I was just at one building. That was when I finally realized I was at the wrong place. I still don’t know why it took me nearly 60 minutes of sitting in the hot, burning sun, in front of an empty store to figure that out.   I looked at my surroundings again, and thought I saw a large mall somewhere in the distance, way up on top of a good-sized hill. All I had to do was figure out how to get across eight lanes of traffic without getting killed in the process! As it turned out, there were four more lanes, which I had not seen from my original vantage point.   The first four lanes were easy. Drivers saw me crossing the street, and were nice enough to stop and let me by. Then there was the “monster” intersection where eight lanes of traffic converged at one lonely stop light. I knew I had to try something radical, or I would be doomed to be there forever. (I knew it could not get much worse, because I was rolling in the street anyway, since there were no sidewalks.)   I was facing south (toward what I hoped was the entrance to the mall), so when the southbound traffic light turned green, I started going across all those other traffic lanes just as if it was something I did every day of my life. Fortunately, the other drivers must have been every bit as dumb as I must, because each one stopped to let me by.   There was a short “roll” up a hill before I needed to decide whether to turn east or west. It was then that I remembered an Access-A-Ride scheduler telling me they usually let passengers off at the east side of the mall, so that was the way I headed.   After going up a hill, and around another hill, I saw a J.C. Penny store. That was a good sign because Alice had said the bookstore was close to that. I then went to what looked to be a large department store, and got a nice woman to open door for me. I just “happened” to mention that I was looking for Border Books, but was lost. She knew the way there and I followed her to where I needed to be.   I knew that once in the store, it would be a breeze finding Alice. I was wrong about that. She was nowhere to be found. I finally got the store manager to page her for me. Sure enough, I saw her riding an escalator up to my floor. When she got to the top, instead of walking over to me, she headed the other direction.   She sat on a bench about 50 feet away from me. When I caught up with her, I almost wished I had not as she began screaming at me, “Where have you been for the past hour?” Wow! What a greeting!   I explained to her about my adventurous day; being left at the wrong place, fighting my way through a maze of traffic (and still being alive to talk about it), looking for her in the right bookstore, and having her paged. She had not heard the page.   Then she told me how she had searched for me throughout the mall (at least she should know where everything is by now), called her children, and driven around looking for me. I apologized for being late; making her worry, etc. even though I did not think it was my fault. We talked things over, and both of us were laughing before long. She insisted on one thing – I have to get a cell phone this weekend. We went outside, and she called Access-A-Ride to let them know they had let me off at the wrong place. She gave them the correct address and asked them to get me at 4 P.M. We then had a nice lunch together, which was followed by going to Border Books. Neither of us bought anything. The only thing I wanted to do was go home, as did she.   Four o’clock neared, so we went outside to wait for my ride. We waited, and waited, and waited, but no ride came to get me. She called Access-A-Ride and was put on hold for 35 minutes – and she still could not get though to anyone.   I looked in the distance (again), and decided that if I could somehow go east, and get past an Interstate, then under the light rail tracks, I could get on the light rail and it would take me about 15 miles, which would then be one short bus ride from where I lived. Alice was not too impressed with my idea. “How are you going to get over there”? She asked. The answer was simple – roll on the roads just as I had done when looking for the mall.   She somehow found a county fire department officer to talk with, while I headed to where I was “sure” a bus stop was located. She caught up with me at the bus stop. Of course, she pulled her “big sister” act to make sure the bus would take me where I needed to go. There was a woman getting on the same bus who was going the same way, and she promised Alice she would make sure I got there.   When we got to the light rail station, the woman got off and said she would wait for me until I got off the bus. Since I was the “Big Adventurer,” I told her to go on, and I could make it from there. She left, and it was then that I remembered I would have to use two elevators to get to the light rail tracks. Elevators are not good for me, since it is almost impossible for me to reach their buttons.   I did manage to hit the buttons by somehow trying to lunge at them with my body. It was by sheer luck that it worked after fifteen minutes. I got on the light rail, and enjoyed the smooth ride in nicely air-conditioned surroundings. After getting off at my usual stop, I realized there was one more elevator I had to use. I was tired of fighting them, so I waited until someone came along on a bike, and asked for help.   As I got off the light rail, there was a man passing out pamphlets because he is running for a seat on the RTD board of directors, which also oversees Access-A-Ride. Boy, did I ever have a story to tell him, which I did. He will definitely get my vote.   The remainder of my ride home was uneventful. I had to cross one last four-lane highway, but I have done that so many times now, that I just take it for granted.   I called Alice to let her know I made it home alive (bad sunburn and all), and that we would have to go there again some day. NOT!