Finding Betelgeuse & cheerleaders

Spaceroy got a book for Christmas. It's the greatest book on constellations that teaches you how to find them all.

This is our story.

It was a hot summer evening on a Saturday. The kind of hot where you can't sleep and there is no breeze to be found. Spaceroy & I decided to take her constellation book, 2 folding chairs and a radio up to rollercoaster hill. (it's several degrees cooler up there) We were going to find Betelgeuse and Orion's belt. We had already learned how to find the dippers and north star on previous visits. We picked up some Pepsi's and headed out.

We gingerly placed our chairs on the uneven surface and tuned in a radio broadcast of a "cowboy soap opera". As we sit and listen and search the stars.....we start to hear what sounds like a bus load of teenage cheerleaders screaming!!.....We turn down the radio a bit
and sure enough, screaming teens.....all around us, circling us.
No! Wait......maybe it's laughing hyennas......No...maybe......coyoties!?!
Well.....I turn to Spaceroy to say "maybe we should......."
Bam! She's in the drivers seat, car started, placing the transmission in reverse....."leave" She was backing the car as I was throwing folding chairs and a radio & two cans of Pepsi into the back seat. She was going to LEAVE ME OUT THERE WITH THE COYOTIES!

Well......petrified Spaceroy & I high tail it out of there! We come flying down the hill, head back to town, shaking like little babies. Lights flashing behind us......yep....we're pulled over. 1:00 a.m. in the morning.

"oh thank God, there are these coyoties after us."
"may I have your drivers license ma'am?"
"Yes sir!" handing over the license. "We were just being chased off by coyoties!"
Officer goes back to his car, runs his little doohicky thingy and returns to Spaceroy and says "your license has been suspended"
"SUSPENDED!?!" "How can I not know this? Why?"
Well....they are not at liberty to tell you why, just that it is.
Flashing his flash light at me, he asks "Do you have a drivers license?"
"Well yes I do!" I answered lawfully. "on you?" "well....no, not on me"
(I don't know why I didn't think to bring my purse out to rollercoaster hill) "But I do have one, it just isn't here." He goes back to his doohicky thingy and calls in my name and address. "Yea, your OK to drive your sister home." Now remember, we are still shook up over our little confrontation with coyoties/hyenas/cheerleaders. I exit the vehicle...(spaceroy had parked to close to the ditch) I stumble as if I am drunk..stumble stumble....feeling shame (although I was stone cold sober) for my "past" drinking indiscretions, I finally end up in the driver's seat and take my sister home. Two old ladies out looking for Orion's belt. How unlucky is that!? What, you can't even go out to look at the stars without someone pickin' on you? What the french toast!

In all fairness to the State trooper, it was 1 a.m. on a Saturday/Sun
he witnesses headlights coming down rollercoaster hill (usually kids or drunks I suppose) so we are either kids drinking on the hill, or teens making out, or....whatever. So he wasn't exactly expecting to see two old ladies screaming about some coyoties, driving under suspension, and stumbling out of the car. What a sight for him I am sure!

The next day, Spaceroy learned that her drivers license was suspended
because her eye doctor had checked a box on a form during her last visit, stating that if she didn't come back in a year for another check up they would suspend her driving privileges. Did you know an eye doctor could do that? We didn't. Now you do.

We haven't been back to roller coaster hill since. There are coyoties out there!

It took us a few weeks to calm down, and then we realized we never got to hear the end of our Cowboy Soap Opera! We'll never know if the Sheriff ever caught slick Jim.