Trip to Farm pt. 1

I left from work to get on the road at 1:19pm Friday afternoon. Everything went pretty well. The routes were sometimes a little tricky to follow, but not to hard if you stayed alert and kept your eyes open. The first 165 miles were awesome. Good music, cruise control, and the country around wasn’t that bad.

I started running into trouble when the highways became two lane roads. Keep in mind by now it is 5:30pm and the sun is sinking lower. I only have about one in a half more hours or so of daylight. Plus, I’m driving east from where I started meaning away from the sun, so it gets dark even sooner.

Thankfully I had my cell phone with me and called my dad, he figured out where I was with google maps and directed me on the right direction. I found out that if I had just gone further then I would have come to it. I think every situation I have encountered when I was lost if I had just gone further I would have come to it. I still haven’t learned.

So, I got back on the right route and was able to enjoy the drive some more, and listen to some music. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I’m lost or in a situation like it I cannot listen to any music, I just can’t. For the next 100 miles or so I was good, I stayed on the same highway, or changed over from one big highway to another.

By now it is after 9:00pm and no daylight to read street signs with. I need glasses but I won’t get them. I’m tired after I’ve been driving for over eight hours. I get lost a second time. This time it is not my fault. The road construction made everything harder, and I stayed on the highway past my exit. So, I called my dad, up to that point I had been great, doing just fine, and then I missed my exit. Instead of going back trying to find that exit he rerouted me by a different method. So now I’m driving up and down the hilly back roads, in the dark, on the phone, with a stick shift. I had to turn around several times on the small country back roads, often times I had to put the phone down. Stick shift is nice for a lot of things, but I will say it would have been nice to not be trying to do 4 different things at the same time.

I finally arrived at the road and came up about 100 feet and saw signs that said road closed. Well, I had been told in an email that the bridge had been washed out, so I knew this was a possibility. So I called my dad back, asked him to find a number for the farm, one different than what I had. He did not. I was considering calling the Barrs, friends of ours, but decided I would try walking. So, I packed up most of what I needed, locked the doors, and headed down the road. I’m very thankful that I keep flash lights in my vehicle, and wind up ones at that.

So, I set out down the road, not knowing how far, or how long I was suppose to go, not even knowing if I was on the right road. I was hoping to come to a washed out bridge though, because that would mean I was close. I made my way past 4 more barricades before coming to the washed out bridge. The first 20ft were okay, but there was a chunk about eight or ten feet wide of the bridge that was missing. Thankfully the water had fully receded, there was less then a foot of water in the river, so there was not much chance of me drowning if I fell in. Plus the washed out bridge was partly on the other side. So I jumped down and climbed back up and kept going. I started seeing things that looked familiar (I’d checked out their website pretty good, which had pictures of the farm). Surprisingly I made my way up the right house and was greeted by Joel and Megan, and Shawn whom I had talked to in email, and two other guys and one other girl. I hadn’t eaten or drunk much, all I had had besides a few samples of lunch was some chips and 4oz water. Megan cooked me a couple eggs, fresh from the farm, and I had a locally grown apple that was the best I’ve had all year! I talked with Joel and Megan and the rest of them, mostly about the trip, but also about a whole bunch of other stuff! Mission trips, family, hobbies! About 11:45 I went to bed. I slept on an air mattress in the guys upstairs half of the house.

English Vintner