A Birthday to Remember . . .

The Plan:  Ken and I had a great weekend planned for my birthday.  We had some deliveries to make to his Flagstaff office, so we would leave about noon on Friday.  We'd get to Mesa in the evening, check into the hotel, then go to dinner at Tia Rosa's( the best Mexican restaurant in the world!).  Then we'd swim in the pool, read and relax.  Saturday morning was our nephew Kevin's wedding in the Mesa, Arizona temple.  We'd go to that, then the luncheon, then go back to the hotel for more swimming and relaxing.  Then we'd attend the reception in the evening and head home on Sunday morning, attending church somewhere on the way, arriving home in time for Ken to do temple recommends at 5:00pm.
The Reality:  The first part went as planned.  We made the deliveries even earlier than expected and all was well until . . . . a few miles outside of Flagstaff, Ken looked down at the car's temperature guage to find it in the red hot zone!  We pulled off at the next exit and tried to determine what was wrong and what to do. No services there, so we mostly coasted to the next exit- Sedona.  Sedona is a good fifteen miles beyond the exit, so we decided to coast down to the next exit- all the time the guage registering dangerously hot.
  The next exit consisted of two gas stations, a bar, a cafe, and as luck would have it- a mechanic's shop- a nameless mechanic's shop.   We arrived about 5:10pm.  They had closed at 5:00.  There was an emergency number, which Ken called.  So enters Mitch into our lives.  Mitch, on the phone,  said he was headed to a church auction that evening, so would meet us back at the shop in about two and a half hours.  He suggested we try out the cafe across the street while we waited. So my Tia Rosa's birthday dinner turned into a hamburger at the Creek Side Cafe.  It was actually really good.  We took our time eating and reading while we waited in the air conditioning.
 Mitch didn't come at 7:30 or 8:00 or 8:30 or 9:00. I figured we were stuck there for the night, so I dibsed the back seat.  But about then, another guy came who Mitch had sent over to see if we were still there.  We were.  Where would we go?   Mitch had been trying to call us, but the cell phone didn't work. Mitch lived about a half hour away, so he didn't want to come all that way if we weren't there.  This guy was friendly, but knew nothing about cars and between you and me, was a little drunk.  Ken engaged him in conversation while we waited ( I think Ken was mostly trying to divert his attention from the car as he obviously knew nothing about car repairs, but kept fiddling with things under the hood.)  They talked of fishing and geography and cars and finally, Mormonism.  I think Ken had him pretty much converted, but because of his impaired state, I'm sure he remembers nothing of the conversation.

    Finally Mitch came about 9:30 with his two kids.  I played ipad games with the little boy while Mitch tried to diagnose the problem.  Mitch was a muscular guy, has lots of tattoos and earrings.  He didn't say much, but seemed to know what he was doing.  After finding out where we were going and that we needed to be there in the morning, he took out the thermostat, thinking that was the problem, but the car continued to heat.  He finally determined that we were stuck for the night.  He would need to replace the radiator.  So we began to make plans to stay at the casino down the road about five miles.  Ken called his brother, Rick and told him  what had happened and that we wouldn't be there for the wedding.
But Mitch had other plans.  He went out to his car and began cleaning stuff out of it.  When Ken came out of the shop after calling Rick, Mitch said, "You'll take my car to Mesa.  You go to the wedding and you can come back tomorrow.  You only live once."  We protested and said it was fine, we could stay there.  "No, you'll take my car to the wedding."  No matter what argument we gave, he would simply not take "No" for an answer. My favorite line was, "I've got a million dollars coverage on that car, so you can crash into someone and there's no problem."  So we packed our stuff into his car and headed to Mesa- another two hours down the road.
We climbed into bed about 1:30 in the morning and were up bright and early the next day to get to the temple.

We loved being in the temple with family and watching Kevin (such a sweet boy- is it okay to call boys sweet?) being sealed to his bride.  Kevin is the youngest of seven children and all seven of them were there with their spouses. What a rewarding day for Rick and Sherrie!  Can you imagine anything better?

The luncheon after was nice; the highlight being all six of the sisters/ sisters-in-laws singing a song they composed for Kevin and Taylor.  This is their family tradition and we've seen some pretty cute performances at each of their weddings.  I think we've been to all of them.  Here's the link if you want to watch it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvH3vNQYgNc  As you can see, you have to be gorgeous and talented to get into the Rick Hinton family!
After the luncheon we headed back to pick up our car.  Mitch, meanwhile, had spent the entire day, first driving to Prescott to get us a new radiator, then installing the new parts and testing the car.  We arrived about five to find him waiting for us with the car fixed.  He charged us a reasonable amount (we'd been worrying the whole time as he could have charged whatever he wanted.) and we were on our way. Our experience with Mitch taught us there are still good guys in the world.
 We stopped for my birthday dinner  at Ruby Tuesday's in Flagstaff, then headed out on the Indian reservation. The repaired car purred like a kitten and stayed in the "cool zone" the whole way home.  We enjoyed singing to some Oldies CD's as we traveled.  I must say, we were particularly good on "I've Got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates."  Ken's got a pretty mean falsetto.  Just as we finished a rousing chorus of "Cherokee Nation, "  the digital clock changed to 12:00 and my birthday was over for another year.  Not at all what we had planned, but certainly a birthday to remember!