Apparently a weekend writing retreat can mess you up, date-wise.
This was to have posted Monday. /sigh/
Dateline, rural Michigan.
This was to have posted Monday. /sigh/
Dateline, rural Michigan.
I’ve always wanted to say that.
I’ve been in the state for a good 24 hours now, and slowly
but surely I am getting over the idea that I will disappear, my luggage
discovered at a wayside rest, my prescription sunglasses found by the police
outside of a gas station.
I feel about the country how many people feel about cities.
The bed and breakfast at which I am staying has loaned me
the use of a car, a Land Rover of indeterminate age.
“First of all,” she says, “she stalls sometimes. Not a full stall, not most of the time
anyway. So don’t freak. If it floods, it will only be for a little
while.”
She takes a sip of her coffee.
“Right,” she says.
“Directions. So! You take a right out of the front
entrance. You go past the old Schmidt
place, the big white place that needs a new roof. Anyway, there’s a gravel road just after the
stand of trees – whatever you do, don’t take that road! Go another click or two, then take a right at
the painted rock, drive around the lake, and you’ll come out where the ballroom
used to be and voila! You’ve arrived.”
An internal shudder runs through me.
“I’m leaving for my writer’s workshop,” I post on
Facebook. “I am wearing a pink and brown
patterned dress. If you later see this
dress at a garage sale, alert the authorities and whatever you do, DO NOT BUY
THE JERKY!”
I’m sure I’ll live.
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30 comments:
You had me at "whatever you do, don’t take that road" LOL
And just how many big white places that needed a new roof were there?
OE, :-)
joeh, do you know, I actually tried to get to one of the dinners one night with a practice drive to the restaurant -- and got lost! Luckily , I pretty much dead-ended at a lake (possibly even Lake Michigan) and turned around... Gorgeous country, really, but like many accustomed to the city, I found the back roads to be intimidating!
The fact you post this suggests there were no banjo players around.
And yes, I totally understand what you mean. It's strange in rural parts. You can't order pizza at 1 am.
Bah, too slow for banjo jokes...
See/hear any piggies?
I know that place! They have really good BBQ.........
From this day forth, all my talk of distance is going to include the word "clicks." I've been remiss until now. No more "miles" for me. Clicks it is.
Aye...you'll pass a big white house...that's not it....if see a pine tree with its stump blasted by lightning you've gone too far.
I'll keep an eye out for that dress.
Funny - reminds of finding places in the nowhere place my brother lives. It's in the middle of the Ozarks.
I feel like this when I drive in any strange place, not just the country. And by strange place, I mean anywhere outside of my small town, and a few areas inside of it, too. And just for the record, I NEVER buy jerky.
I wonder what would have happened had you taken "that road."
I've never been there but I've always known it was where the ballroom used to be.
Hope you found your way and didn't take that gravel road by mistake!
Watch out for werewolves. The Michigan kind are among the worst.
How do we even know it's really you? Please submit the "password" you said you would use to prove it was you in case "anything odd" happened.
Not worried. The fact that you caught the non-post Monday tells us all is well. Or at the least, that you are alive and in possession of some of your senses.
And you turn left where Johnson's house used to be. Until it burnt down forty years ago...
Hari Om
oh. An adventure is afoot... all good then. YAM xx
The most existential direction I've ever been given: "right where the road meets the sky, turn left."
Notes to self: 1. Watch for pink and brown dresses at the thrift shops and garage sales.
2. Give up jerky.
I'm going to assume that since this didn't post on Monday and then it magically appeared on Tuesday that you are alive.
I once received directions in a small, backwater that told me to turn right at Church's Chicken. Neglected to mention that the Church's Chicken had been closed for several years and was now a Burger King and that it should have been a left.
Where's a bus when you need one?
OMG.. I am with you Pearl... I would so much rather the city over the country... lol
Be vigilant. There are racoons crossing the road. They make your car tip over. We lost a good Mazda there like that. Really, drive carefully!
Why even mention the gravel road I wonder? Why not just say drive until you see the painted rock and turn there?
Glad you made it back safely. I once had a pink and brown patterned dress.
LOL You are so funny!!
Oh my goodness this really cracked me up and I needed a good laugh
Bwahahaha! I used to sell stitchery at home parties and the instructions to get to people's homes were priceless! Turn at the red barn that used to be white. Follow the road till it turns to gravel, then turn in at the first gate. You'll have to open it. Make sure you close it. We don't want the bull to get out. Oh, the memories! :)
Wait, they let you borrow their car? they sound like trusting folk. Did you ever turn at the gravel road? There's material there, I'm sure. Look what it did for Robert Frost all those years ago.
Now you see, I would feel right at home there. Your tales about city life and riding the bus are the ones that frighten me. :-)
Don't visit seemingly abandoned shacks, especially if the inside is decorated with hands in glass jars.
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