Day Seven: North Dakota

My trip day numbers are off. Whatever.

We took off bright and early, headed for Bismarck. We stopped for gas. And then...

Remind me again NEVER to follow my mother's driving directions. The woman thinks she can read a map, but she can't. She thinks she's being clear, but she isn't. And she thinks she knows where she's going, but she doesn't.

F'rinstance, she once gave me directions to my brother's house: "Well, go through downtown, and you know how you had to go around the parking lot for the East Side mall? Well you don't have to do that any more [you hadn't had to do that for years when she was telling me this] so go straight through, and cross the bridge, and then when you get to that overpass, you know the one just past downtown, by the Best Western? The Townhouse, well, at the overpass, you take the Cherry Street exit, and you can't get to the street you need directly, you have to take a right and a left to get there, well, Dad doesn't go the same way as me..."

She confirmed with him the way he usually goes, which is not the way she was telling me to go anyway, so I said, "So, the Cherry Street exit?"

"And then there's Cherry Street. So you go...." and she tells me to go X number of blocks, take a right and then a left, and I should be there.

I got lost. Her directions were completely fucked up. Luckily, I had written down the address, so I used my brain and found the house on my own.

Later, I asked her, "Mom, did you realize you never told me to TAKE Cherry Street?"

"Yes I did, I said..."

"You said, 'And then there's Cherry Street' and then this right, left thing, which didn't lead to Cherry Street."

"Oh. Sorry."

BTW, she could have just said, "Go behind La Campana, go past the park, and take a left," and it would have been clear as a bell to me.

So, back to the trip. Mother managed to get us lost between Grand Forks and Fargo. Look on a map and you'll realize how nearly impossible it is to do such a thing. I'm still mad at myself for listening to mom, because I knew better than to listen to her.

At about 12:15, I got a phone call. It was my sister.

"We're going 75 miles an hour. LEGALLY!"

"So you're in South Dakota, then?"

"Yeah, where are you?"

"Well, I'm not going 75, that's for sure. I'm going about 15 MPH down a muddy gravel road because MOM TOLD ME TO! I'd stop and ask for directions, but there's nothing out here, except for a car coming toward us. Bet that's mom and dad. Yep! Call you back when I don't have to use two hands to drive...or kill mother."

Dad pulled up next to us and rolled down the window. Mom grinned sheepishly and said, "And then there's Cherry Street!"

--TBC--