I was supposed to meet a bunch of the family for lunch at Founders (http://foundersbrewing.com/) in the the heart of downtown Grand Rapids. I looked up the address, plugged it into the GPS, and got on my way.

The GPS got me to the place OK but, I needed to find a place to park. Luckily, there were a bunch of parking meters in front of Founders and most of them were available. I pulled into a spot right in front and stopped the car. “Wow,” I thought. “I didn’t expect parking to be this easy.”

It wasn’t. I checked my pockets for coins and found that I didn’t have any. I checked the meters and they weren’t the fancy schmancy type that take credit cards. I started the car and looked for parking spots.

I headed north and only found parking lots where the signs looked like someone’s doctoral dissertation. I turned around and tried south and found more of the same.

I tried exploring east and west while calling Pam on my HandsFree™ phone. Unfortunately, Pam was no closer than me and had as much information as I had. As I was talking to Pam I decided to turn right onto an itty-bitty street and go around the block.

It wasn’t an itty-bitty street. It was a <naughty word> on-ramp to the <very naughty word> freeway. The ramp entered the freeway on the left side of the lanes and the first exit was on the right. The exit was awfully close to where I got on so instead of making graceful lane changes, I practically did a hard right turn to get off.

As I’m driving through the streets to get back to Founders, I got a call from Morgan on my HandsFree™ phone. Morgan told me where I could park: south and west of Founders under one of the doctoral dissertations. As I got the last details, I drove north past Founders and saw Beth and the grandkids. I waved at them and tried to find a freeway-free way of turning around.

I followed Morgan’s directions and parked and had a fine lunch at Founders with the family.

Maybe next time I’ll walk.