Monday, June 16, 2008

Turning Left


Gillian on her scooter at the Venetian









David Sedaris once wrote about a compulsion he had to only turn right. It took him hours to get anywhere because he could not bear to turn left. His life was one big cork screw as he plotted all routes to include only right turns. It seems Steve and I have a tendency toward left, though of a lesser intensity.


Traveling in New England years ago, we got to New Hampshire and decided spontaneously to turn left, ending up in Montreal, one of the most romantic cities in North America. Some years after that our personal politics leaned left, then veered left, then left us in Leftville forever more. And yesterday, we were in Needles, CA and the itch to turn left hit hard.

Our plan was to continue on I-40 through the Mojave Desert and make the Grand Canyon mid afternoon. We stopped in a Mexican restaurant, a great, family-owned place and the decision was made over flautas and tamales. We turned left and 95 miles later found ourselves in Las Vegas. Okay, actually, we found ourselves and a few other people in the swimming pool at the Venetian with tall, frozen drinks and smiles as big as Nevada. Las Vegas was not in the plan for this trip, but hey, sometimes left is the only choice and sometimes it’s simply irresistible.

2 comments:

Oregon Wine Tours said...

Did you know that we were in Las vegas at the same time! Sorry we missed you. Boy was it hot!

Kelley Styring said...

I did NOT know that. It was VERY hot, even the tigers were panting. Our left turn was spontaneous, so when you do that, you never know what you're going to get. We celebrated Father's Day while driving down the strip. Steve got a CD that Collin created for him by downloading Zoey Dechanel songs. We listened to hit as we drove through the Hoover Dam and onto new Mexico.