frolic and detour

Trip time! Like most trips, it began with a trip down to my parents. I came down Thursday afternoon, got a haircut, and had dinner at a Thai restaurant with Dad (Mom was working late). The next day mostly consisted of chilling out, catching pokemon with Dad, and sampling snacks (sambal prawn rolls, so good). Mom got off work at 4, and shortly thereafter, we set out.

The drive up was more interesting than expected because Google informed us that the highway near our destination was closed. “Closed?!” said Mom, who was driving that leg of the journey. We later learned there had been an 85-vehicle pileup in the snow. Northbound lanes weren’t reopened until 9 pm. People were stuck on the highway for hours.

But at the time, all we knew was that Google directed us off the highway and into a seemingly endless morass of backcountry roads. The scenic route, as they say, except it was night and Mom had to navigate a bunch of poorly-lit poorly-shoveled unfamiliar roads in the dark. Not another car was on the road with us. We began to doubt the alleged highway closure (shouldn’t other cars be detouring with us?). We drove past empty fields, barns, farmhouses with Christmas lights still up (“Time moves differently out here,” said Dad), and a diner advertising FISH FRY MONDAYS. We cheered whenever we drove through a little town of 1000 residents. My cell reception was spotty throughout, but thankfully Dad’s Google Maps connection held, or we would have been hopelessly lost.

Finally we emerged into civilization and reached our hotel at around 9:30 pm. We heard about the accident on the nightly news.