My B-day (Feb 13th)

My birthday (February 13th)
This day started off great. When I woke up Katy was making a huge breakfast: potatoes, eggs, pancakes, fruit, and muffins. It was good! Then we went over to the club to get our shooting in and decided to head into the city as we could go hiking like we wanted to, as the fire had destroyed the hiking trails we wanted to use. So we decided to head into the city. I wanted to go see Melbourne Central, a shopping center that is also a tourist attraction. So we headed in. We drove around for quite some time trying to find a parking spot. It took a long time but finally we found one, we were very happy! The city is terrible to park in; it is so hard to find a spot.
So we parked and walked around Melbourne Central, a shopping area, for while and then walked down by the Yarra River and sat for while. It was nice to relax a little. After a couple hours we headed back to the car so we could get some dinner or maybe go to a movie.
When we got back to where our car and a couple others were parked, there was nothing – no car. We immediately looked to make sure we were on the right street…yup, right street. We looked at the ground to see if there was any glass, maybe the car had been broken into and taken….nope, no glass. Then we looked up at the parking sign and saw that the sign said two hour parking until 4:30. We missed the part of the sign that told us about from 4:30 to 6:00. But sure enough as we stood below the sign and looked up at it, it said: C 4:30-6:00. Which means clearway from 4:30 to 6:00 and no parking. Luckily we found the phone number for the parking authority on a parking meter up the street. We found out that our car would have been towed, since it was in a clearway area, and where we would have to go to get it back. We were told it what street it would be on and where we would have to go to get it. Well, we had a map of the city and tried to find the location on there, but of course our map did not go out as far as it needed to so we could see where we were going. So, we decided we would walk. We knew which way to go and knew we would run into the street it was on if we went down a certain road so we started off. After we had been walking for a while we checked our map to see how far we had already made it. A lady walking by stopped and asked if we needed any help, so we told her our story. She said she was just getting done with work and if we followed her to where her car was she would let us look at her Melways (a map book) to see where exactly we had to go. After looking at the map book we realized we had a very long way to go, and were not looking forward to the walk. Unexpectedly the lady said she was going that way and offered us a ride. I think that was a hidden b-day present or someone looking out for us, somewhere.
When we got to the impound lot we found out that to get our car back we would need to pay $315 right there or we couldn't get it back. Obviously we need our car so we paid it. Then when we got out to the car there was a parking ticket from the City of Melbourne for $130 for parking in a Clearway spot. So I think that may be one of the most expensive b-day presents.
And I don't think we will be driving into the city anytime soon.
Well, Happy Birthday to me..............but there is nothing we can really do about it now so we just laugh.