On Being Lost and Found

Last weekend, the GNT group hosted a bonfire.  What more incentive do I need to leave the house on a cold night than the promise of a roaring fire, s'mores, and a place where I can see stars?

Answer: a friend to make the trip with me!  Ginny and I made plans to go together.  When I found out that she was going to be significantly late, I considered driving myself and meeting her there, but decided against it.  I think God infused my mind with a bit of wisdom...

We first typed in the address to Ginny's GPS.  "Address unknown."  Next, we tried to put in the name of the state forest.  Still no luck.  We browsed "Camping," "Recreation," "Parks," and even "Tourism"... nothing.  Next we availed ourselves of Google.  At last we found the forest, though not the specific address we'd been given.  Writing down directions and mileage (a lesson I've learned about hand-written directions), we set out into the night.  (Last weekend, clocks changed -- this was the first night of early darkness.)

We found the first turn as we drove past the road -- there had been no street sign coming from our direction and the one the other way was mostly hidden by a pedestrian crossing sign.  Pulling a u-turn in a "do not enter" driveway, we continued on what seemed to be our way.

But we couldn't find the next turn.  We drove past neighborhoods... into the middle of nowhere... past some forest, past some water, past some fields, into some sketchy looking areas.  Eventually, Ginny pointed out that we'd gone way past the distance we should have, and we spun around in someone's driveway.  We drove back up the road, looking intently for our street sign, until we made it back up to the original intersection.  Frustrated and hungry, we stopped into a gas station in hopes of finding a map.  

We found no maps, but did find a very helpful young man behind the counter, who gave us directions, something along the lines of: "Drive through a neighborhood and down a hill and turn at the church. Go through fields and forests and past a county airport and around a corner until you come to a fork.  Watch out for deer.  Go right and over train tracks until you come to a left.  Watch out for deer. Go over a bridge and up a hill and you're there.  Watch out for deer."  

We set off again and his directions were perfect!  (We didn't see any deer.)  Until... we reached the end of the direction and were at the state forest, but not the bonfire.  So we called a few people until someone picked up and then passed the phone to five other people before someone finally gave us directions to the actual fire.  We felt ridiculous as we poked our way down dirt roads with dust flying around us.  

However, everyone else at the bonfire told us that they had to call for directions as well, and we got three phone calls after we got there to help others find us.  The fire, s'mores, and stars were everything I could hope for.  I even got to teach a GNT from Malaysia how to make his first s'more.  We also managed to find our way home with no troubles at all.