An unwanted hitchhiker and more strange dreams

Well, today was rather disappointing, as I discovered that I have missed out on going to Cedar Point for the annual 2025 Coastermania. By the time I had visited the registration page today (which I have done daily for the past month as the time and date of the sale is never announced beforehand), the event was completely sold out. I have been looking forward to going back to that park since my visit last year where I missed out on riding two major coasters that were closed. There is still a possibility that I might be able to go with one of my coaster riding buddies later in the year, though. But I suppose there is no point crying over spilled milk, as the old saying goes.

Then, as I was running errands this afternoon, I got a nasty surprise when I felt something crawling on my leg as I was driving along. I looked down and there was a paper wasp wandering around on my calf, crawling up towards my knee. I tried to wave it off but it refused to fly away and continued on its way. Luckily the light was red, and as soon as I came to a stop I opened the door and flicked the wasp off of me and out of my car. Luckily I didn’t get stung, as the last time I flicked a wasp off of me it managed to sting me before it flew away. But at least I wasn’t driving. Having a bee (or a wasp) in one’s car can definitely be an alarming situation, even for those of us who aren’t allergic to their stings.

And then, last night brought more vivid and intense dreams, most of them about bridges and likely brought on by looking at that Key Bridge site and a video I saw. The Key Bridge dreams were very fragmentary, and I could not really recall much about them. But what bits I do remember centered around those pictures they had posted of a wind tunnel test on a (supposed) model of the new bridge. The extreme anxiety wasn’t present this time, but the dreams still revolved around those photos. One other dream that I remember did have sort of a narrative. This one featured a rickety, rusty old steel truss bridge, one that had a nasty set of “teeth” in the form of an expansion joint that kept opening and closing. I know exactly what inspired this dream – I happened to see a video of just such a bridge with those exact features showing the the corroded, broken and bent teeth gnashing against each other as traffic navigated the bridge. I don’t know where I was in relation to this ancient and decrepit span, but suddenly I found myself behind the wheel of my car, and I was driving down a dusty road. Then, my car began to take flight, and soon I was piloting it above the road, and I soared over the old rusty bridge. From there I flew over a grassy field into the setting sun until I landed in an open area devoid of vegetation. There were some small shack like buildings nearby, and there were people wandering around. I got out and began to wander around. The ground was all muddy, despite the dust of the field I had just landed in. The people didn’t really pay any attention to me, and this seemed to be part of a small village in which they lived. Then I found myself walking up to a house, and I knocked on the door, but no one answered. So I went around into the backyard and there by the basement door were two small humanoid figures. It seemed as though one was male and one was female, and they were rather elf like in appearance. They had grey skin and wore clothes, and so were sort of like stereotypical aliens except they both had short grey hair on their heads. But there was something sinister and threatening about them, and they stared at me and laughed and grinned menacingly. The house was very much like my grandparents’ old home, with the sort of basement that had metal doors over the steps. The strange figures didn’t try to chase after me, but I took off running around to the front of the house and it was at this point I woke up.