Change of Rallyee Seasons

@ 2017 Literocat

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As Fall becomes Winter, as days get abominably shorter and colder, I resign myself to accepting that my topless car days will soon be done for four, long, cold months. Frustrated, I seek and find one more rallyee to run -- appropriately called 'Twixt the Leaves.' Though still eight weeks away, I dread the snowy prison where I will hibernate after this year's last rallyee.

This rallyee day is finally here. I get number sixty-nine so we line up to leave at 10:09 A.M. My car, my navigator and I are all ready and waiting under the fiery, indolent sun and fragrant humidity streaming off the sizzling, oil scented blacktop. Not its usual smooth self, my Triumph too is rumbling its readiness to triumph. As we inch forward to the start line, the enticing aroma of an eggy breakfast roll invades my nose and I recall the starchy memory of Egg McMuffins with dad.

10:08 Focus! My navigator covers her luscious, tempting legs with the oversized dual clipboard. It's sad to know they will be hidden for the next few hours. I lean over and steal a lingering kiss before we both have to lock into the challenges ahead. With one minute to go, she reminds me what the general instructions say and then reads and rereads the first three instructions for the calibration leg. Finally, it's 10:09 and we're off. "Take the nearest of the five exits from the lot; commence 28 mph average speed; turn left at 1.358 miles." Got it!

The first few miles, about ten, are deliberately easy and my mind wanders to what's coming. With the first leg completed, it gets real. The final calibration instruction says "9.736 miles at the owl; reset your odometer and proceed to instruction one." I spot the wooden owl statue in front of the Owl Tavern and reset my odo there. The mile references get extremely sparse, as expected in a championship event. My navigator reads me the next three instructions and tells me we will enter the woods at that point.

As we pass the tavern, I inhale a lung full of seasonal pumpkin-spice schnapps. Though I love the homey scent that reminds me of Thanksgiving gathers, I must ignore it! I prematurely think of entering the forest, sliding thru the crisp, crunchy, dying leaves and the multicolor flurry I leave behind my Triumph as I hustle to make up time. Images of jumping into a huge pile of raked leaves fill my head, but I refuse to max another checkpoint by being too slow or too fast! Images of childhood Christmas fill my head when I think about the comforting scent of pine needles and drying leaves as they change color. All that adds to the thrilling anxiety of this professional level event. Back to reality!

As my navigator cranks her mechanical computer, struggles to read ahead three instructions and make notes on the custom, laptop clip board, I watch my speed. She calls out, "You're nine--hundreths of a minute fast. All good so far." My job is to keep us on time and on the exact route, even the overgrown power--line--road, if you can call it a road, which is hardly more than a trail. I must also search out the elusive clues, often hidden in plain sight, as I keep an eye on the odometer to the thousandth of a mile. Matching deceptive landmarks among the blurry trees is deliberately difficult. Those markers are my portents that tell me I am off, or hopefully still on, the precisely mapped maze of routes that lead me to victory.

This is yet another multitasking challenge for both of us. The bumps and slippery road add to the risk of lost trophies or, lost car parts. My racing heart tells me how much I eagerly anticipate the finish, trophies or not. Just finishing a pro rallyee is a joy--a victory! At one-hundred-forty-two-point-six-nine-four miles, we pull into the Owl Tavern lot. Four of the earlier cars are missing and ten others arrive after us, earning the maximum five--hundred points since they fell for the mileage trap.

We all order a late lunch and enjoy the vivid contrasting scents of the fried bar food (kicking off memories of college weekends), review our known mistakes and wonder about those we don't yet know about as we savor the aroma of our pumpkin-spice schnapps. Trophies are laid out on a raised platform. Yes, my favorite is there too. For DLBF, Dead Last But Finished, the proud loser gets the traditional half trophy of a horse's ass.

Twenty minutes after the last checkpoint and last timed cars arrive, we get our results. We clocked twenty-two points at the final checkpoint and were off one-point-one-zero minutes over seven checkpoints for an overall total of one-hundred-ten points. Good enough for first place and a long, warm, musky kiss! There's no need to describe what memories the sultry kiss evokes!

Yes, I'm going to miss Fall, at least until the sole Winter Fling and numerous Spring rallyees come. I salivate over the thought of the delayed endorphins as we cut thru the Spring verdure and release the pleasant scent of fresh mowed, or crushed, grass.

==== 5 hours 0200 9/2/17 === 901 words ====

Seminal writing prompt: 9/2/17, write about a change of seasons with sensory details that trigger an emotional response.

Gck September 3, 2017