Adventures in driving part II
Yes, this is part II of our crazy adventures in driving throughout my husband and my 50 years together, and we’ve had some doozies. For instance, last Friday, we headed out to Huntsville, Alabama to visit with our oldest son, daughter-in-law, and precious granddaughter Evelyn. It had been over a year since we had been to Huntsville because of the pandemic. All of us were vaccinated, so we were good.
We like to take back roads to Huntsville especially going through Mentone, Alabama. We even talked about trying to eat at the unique Wild Flower Café there, but decided against it for now. Heading through the rustic, little mountain town with its charming shops is a real joy.
Unfortunately, when we got to the other side heading out, we learned our usual route was closed with basically no signs of where to take a detour. We later learned there had been a rock slide.
Bill asked a nice lady for directions and I listened closely, trying not to forget the right and left turns. Even with paying close attention, we wound up on a curvy, windy, narrow road on the top of some mountain. It was dotted with cabins that were nice, but since I do most of the driving, (and you have to understand I like to know where I’m going), I was a wee bit uneasy. We did not see one human being or any other moving vehicle.
We saw no dogs, cats, bears, not even a squirrel cross our path. What we did see were monolithic type rocks like neither of us had ever seen in the Southeast. They were beautiful, but I couldn’t enjoy their beauty. I was too busy wondering if we would come out of this somewhere in Florida.
Finally, we started descending. This was a good sign until we started going up again and some young person driving like a bat out of hell almost hit us head on as he whipped around a blind curve. Yes, this is when I used a colorful word, the most colorful word I know. We saw a sign to DeSoto State Park. It looked nice if we hadn’t been so lost.
We finally made it down the mountain and into Fort Payne, Alabama and headed back
toward Huntsville. We arrived safe and relatively sound only an hour and a half later than we should have. And we both learned to use our GPS the right way. Siri would have taken us out of there in no time.
Back in 2005, we were on our second Western road trip. We had headed out of South Dakota on our way to Sheridan, Wyoming. Some rather ominous clouds were ahead of us as we traveled on. I’m not good with ominous clouds having lived in Kansas and Georgia. I feel threatened. The thing about Wyoming is that there are very few towns or settlements in which to pull off to find shelter. I drove through the most blinding rainstorm I have ever encountered.
The wind was blowing every direction and it was raining so much that the rain on the roadway came up over the hood of the car and hit the windshield like we were driving on a beach. I must confess, it was harrowing.
We made it through to Sheridan and Bill overheard a conversation while we were eating. It seems there was one room left in the town and we quickly got up, paid and left in record time. Bill said he’d never gotten in front of a lady before, but we had just been through something terrible and he knew I needed some rest and maybe a shot of tequila. We got the room and slept well.
The next day as we crossed over into Montana our daughter called. She was frantic. “Mom! Thank goodness you’re ok. Where are you? Did you know that there was a tornado in Wyoming yesterday afternoon?” I felt like giving her a sarcastic answer, but I didn’t. I did tell her that I drove right through it and her daddy had to peel my fingers off the steering wheel.
Later that day, I headed up into some mountains in Idaho. It was smoky and hazy. Pretty quickly, I noticed the areas beside the road were on fire! It was disconcerting to say the least, but we made it through unscathed. Coming around a curve, we encountered a gorgeous lake filled with sailboats. We were in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
I know as you read all this, you must think I do all the driving on these trips. Bill drives, too. He just always seems to miss out on the adventurous driving experiences.
We made the rest of the trips with little drama. Narrow roads on isolated mountaintops, tornadoes, and fires were quite enough.