{"id":4569,"date":"2021-05-12T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=4569"},"modified":"2021-05-12T13:27:30","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T13:27:30","slug":"the-adventures-of-maite-and-kepa-part-51","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2021\/05\/12\/the-adventures-of-maite-and-kepa-part-51\/","title":{"rendered":"The Adventures of Maite and Kepa: Part 51"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The next day, they got up early. Once the car was packed with their suitcases, Maite checked them out while Kepa went to get coffee and breakfast. It wasn\u2019t long before they were sitting in the car, ready to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, it\u2019s almost five hours to Santa Barbara, where Javi lives,\u201d said Kepa. \u201cI say we drive down the coast and stop to look at the sites. Javi isn\u2019t expecting us until late this evening, since he had to work today. So, there is no rush to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Buber’s Basque Story is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you sure you don\u2019t want to drive first?\u201d asked Maite as she started the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kepa chuckled. \u201cYou drew the short straw. You get to navigate us out of the big city.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Maite was used to driving in Bilbao, with its small streets and thick traffic, driving in California was a different experience. Even early in the morning, the freeway was full of cars. Sometimes, she was able to reach the speed limit, though other cars still flew by her; she could almost feel their anger at her for going \u201cslow.\u201d Other times, they were almost at a standstill. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to how the traffic flowed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWon\u2019t it be nice when they have self-driving cars and we don\u2019t have to think about traffic?\u201d said Maite as she brought the car to a halt on the freeway, traffic backed up for what seemed forever. \u201cWe can just sit back and do anything else as the car takes us to our destination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat? And miss out in the joy of controlling the beast, feeling the engine rev as you hit the gas?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHa! Can you even feel the engine in that thing you have back at home?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, but my next car\u2026\u201d began Kepa wistfully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou keep dreaming,\u201d interrupted Maite. \u201cWhere would you even drive such a beast back home? On those roads? You\u2019d end up killing yourself or, worse, some bicyclist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kepa shrugged. \u201cMaybe I\u2019ll build a little track on the land behind the baserri, something where I can take my car out for a spin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maite laughed. \u201cAnd maybe I\u2019ll build a particle accelerator in my basement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat basement? You live in an apartment!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExactly!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kepa laughed as the traffic started moving again. He looked at his phone. \u201cIt seems there is no route that follows the coast all the way down, unfortunately. How about we swing over to Monterey for lunch and then back inland until we get further south to San Luis Obispo. I read that it has some interesting historical buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat sounds good to me,\u201d said Maite as she gave the rental a bit of gas, revving the engine as they started to move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSee! You like it too!\u201d exclaimed Kepa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maite smiled. \u201cI never said I didn\u2019t,\u201d she said as she gave the car a little extra gas to swerve around the slower car in front of her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The next day, they got up early. Once the car was packed with their suitcases, Maite checked them out while Kepa went to get coffee and breakfast. It wasn\u2019t long before they were sitting in the car, ready to go. \u201cSo, it\u2019s almost five hours to Santa Barbara, where Javi lives,\u201d said Kepa. \u201cI say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2640,864],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventures-of-maite-and-kepa","category-bubers-basque-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/maite-and-kepa-v2-01.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1bH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4570,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4569\/revisions\/4570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}