We have all kinds of critters running around our property but this visitor in our driveway was an interesting surprise on Memorial Day.

We both had doctor’s appointments in Mt. Airy Friday. Amy first, then me. She wasn’t in the waiting room when I emerged from the doctor’s office.

She also wasn’t in the parking lot. Neither was our SUV.

So I called her cell phone. Voice mail. As usual, it was turned off.

I remembered she wanted to check out a Japanese restaurant near the doc’s office so I walked the two blocks there. Found the restaurant. No Amy. No SUV.

Then I remembered one of my cell phones was charging in the car. It was on so I called it.

“Where are you?” Actually, there was an expletive or two in the question.

When we wandered into Cafe del Sol Friday night I thought for a second we had been transported back to San Francisco in the 1960s and 70s.

Easy-listening jazz floated out the door, courtesy of John Winnike’s group (above) and the ambiance was about as laid back as you can get. Just up the street, the fenzy of the Friday Night Jamboree spilled out of Country Store.

A hard downpour right when the show started didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd or the numbers that packed into the store. Friday night is music night in Floyd and the the town’s music row now runs from Winter Sun on the South End of town all the way to

Over the Moon at the extreme north end where guitarist Bernie Coveney (right) played before another full house.

In between you find music at Cafe del Sol, the Country Store, Whiskers, the Loft and Oddfellas Cantina. We toured music row with friends from Northern Virginia (who are currently restoring a house in Wythe County and will move here full time later this year) and noted during the evening that we go out more since moving to Floyd County than we ever did in Washington.

One of the first things we bought for our house when we closed on it on Dec. 3, 2004, was a solar-powered number light for the driveway.

It has guarded our driveway since that time, withstanding thunderstorms, hail, ice, snow, delivery trucks, lawn mowers, curious deer, urinating dogs and just about everything else.

But it fell victim Thursday to a serial light killer named Amy at the wheel of a dangerous weapon — a Jeep Liberty.

When you add the four perimeter lights my wife has managed to destroy while behind the wheel of her killer SUV, the wanton murder of our number light makes her an ace.

I’m going to affix five decals of outdoor lights on her door so the world will be warned: Beware petite brunettes on roadside killing rampages.

Amy, of course, went into immediate denial (as in "I didn’t do it"), but I’ve watched enough episodes of CSI to gather evidence.

I measured tire tracks (same width and tread as her Liberty). I observed the debris trail (led from the driveway).

Then I found the smoking gun: Two pieces of the light housing embedded in the treads of the right front tire and a third in the rear tire tread. When confronted, she feigned ignorance ("I didn’t feel anything when I drove out of the driveway").

But faced with overwhelming evidence gathered by CSI husband she confessed then added a new tact to the defense ("I didn’t hit it before you moved it closer to the driveway").

Yes, closer, but not in the driveway, and — as the accompanying photographic evidence shows, not even that close to the surface of the driveway.

Guilt established, case close. The prosecution rests.

“So,” a friend asked the other day, “where are you going this year for vacation?”

Vacation? Did he say vacation?

It occurs to us that we haven’t had a vacation since moving fulltime to Floyd County in late 2004. In fact, we haven’t taken a vacation since a two-week trip to Hawaiian island of Lanai in 1991.

Back when I “worked for a living,” so much of that work was spent on planes and in hotels around the world. When vacation time came, the last thing I wanted to do was crawl back on a plane and head for another hotel.