Losing Miss Paula

Today we had our first ever "Holy Shit" moment! Duane lost Paula and not just for 5 or 10 minutes, but for almost 90 minutes. Viason-la-Romaine is a town separated by a river and is made up of the lower city, (below the river) which is the newer, more touristy part down on the flat land. We had lunch down in the new part and then set out to find the medieval city up on the hill. Duane told Paula to just wait below until he'd scoped out the lay of the land before we climbed the giant hill. He arrived at the bottom of this giant incline (Some call it a hill) and waited to cool down a bit before reporting back. After several minutes, there was no sign of Paula so Duane retraced his steps back into the village. Little known to Duane, Paula had cleverly hidden herself in a tiny pottery store away from his sight line. Duane walked all the way back! Meanwhile Paula exited the pottery store and approached the giant incline waiting for Duane to report in. Duane didn't report in. He was all the way back in town! Paula, now assuming Duane had lost his mind and climbed the hill and was lost in conversation, climbed the hill! Meanwhile Duane is making his 3rd round trip of the approach street. NO Paula! Paula is deep into the medieval village by now searching every corner for Duane. he's not there! Duane has now returned to the restaurant where we had lunch (No Paula), returned to the car (No Paula) went to the tourist office ( No Paula), found the police station (just in case) and was planning his revenge on the the terrorists who had kidnapped Paula! Meanwhile Paula is still knocking around the the medieval village believing Duane was yakking away with some random tourist. (He does this a lot). Paula and Duane are both about to give up and go seek revenge on some innocent bystander when they accidentally meet on the bridge. There was great rejoicing! After all these years we had never lost each other before. We vowed not to let it happen again. Next time we will stop looking a lot sooner and go find a terrorist and kick his behind just to relieve the stress!