Friday rush hour treated us kindly. Well, atleast it didn’t batter us. It was a dream come true for Chip. He got back from school, ate some fruit and was getting dressed to go out for a car ride. Life can’t get better than that for Chip. My mom had already packed our bags. I readied Chip’s dinner, loaded our car, caught up with our friends and drove away to Chip’s “Choo-Choo Train” chanting.
West VA is wilderness in your back yard. We sped away from the choked Washington DC suburbs into single lane roads that led into small towns and villages where it was impossible to find vegetarian food for me and my mom. We finally found a sandwich chain and ate there. It is impossible for anyone to feed dinner to Chip when we are out. He gets so exited, that he barely eats. I was still in a terrible shape from the strep, so I shoved down a small sandwich for the sake of antibiotics, guzzled some benadryl and was nicely knocked out by the time we hit the road again.
When I woke up we were still driving. Chip had fallen asleep, with his beloved truck book on his lap.
“Where are we?” I asked groggily.
There were three families traveling. Us, K, his wife (KW) and their five year old son (KK) who were in the car in front of us and Z and his wife(ZW) in the car behind us.
“In West Virginia”, he replied. It was 11:00pm. There was a thunderstorm outside and the pitch black darkness of the night was interrupted with huge streaks of lightening. We were driving on a small road which ended in a T-junction. We made a left and started driving right through a corn field. The directions told you to go through a cornfield???? Let me see the directions. I said. We are using maps, replied BigGeek and K was using the GPS on his phone until the signal died.
Here we were in a cornfield, with no cell phone signal, no definite directions of where we were going in what is the Bihar of USA, where people just disappear sometimes. And yes, no gun either.
I don’t think getting your car would have helped. BigGeek was saying. My car has a built in GPS which makes life so much simpler. And, even if you briefly loose satellite signal (like in a tunnel) it has a series of gyroscopes that determine the position and orientation of the car on the map. The log cabin had no postal address. It had a mile marker address. So, the GPS could not plot a route. The website had given two routes and the adventurous guys had chosen the “alternate route”. Nobody had thought of making an old-fashioned print out and the log cabin website could not be accessed, because, none of our handhelds and crackberries had a signal.
Get some rest, sweetie. BigGeek said. I dozed off again for an hour. When I woke up, Chip was still asleep and we were in the middle of a mountainous road. It was 12:45 am. Wow, quite a drive I thought. How far are the cabins from the state park BigGeek was asking. About 12-15 miles. Then we are off by about 40 miles. Cass is about 50 miles away. WHAT? BigGeek signaled other cars to stop. We need to go back, BigGeek was saying. So we made a (rather dangerous) U-turn and headed back to Cass. If anything there would atleast be a police station where we could ask for directions. As we neared Cass, BigGeek realized what had happened. At a T-junction, we made a right instead of a left. So, we kept driving to the other side and sure enough in 20 mins, we saw signs to our log cabins. YIPEEE!
Chip waits for train to arrive
Here comes the train
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