Gravel in our Travel

I reported already on Alison's Awesome Summer, but this morning our NBC affiliate, WTHR, aired its story on the filming of "The Misadventures of Bindu," and our messy-haired redhead made the cut. So it seemed like I should share the story.

You can see it here. I love her giggle at the end. It's so Alison.

In other news,  Ali drove us down to Brazil Saturday, her first at-the-wheel experience on the Interstate. Traffic was light so that helped, but she still had to deal with semis and other drivers coming up fast behind her. She did really well in both the city and on the highway.

It was a slightly different story when our GPS turned on us and directed us to leave Indiana 59 in our quest to get to a baby shower at Briley and Patrick's house. We'd not been there before, and if I'd only explored a tiny bit, I would have known that it required no gravel in our travel at all.

But I made the mistake of trusting the voice coming from my GPS. We turned onto a county road and Ali learned that not every roadway in America is clearly marked.

We wandered around a bit and found ourselves at an intersection with a road not referenced by the GPS. The numbered county road we were on led to what my rurally-trained eye told me was a driveway.

"Let's try right," I said, thinking that was at least in the direction of where I thought we needed to go. We hadn't gotten far when I decided we needed to double back. We met Cujo turning around in a driveway.

"Uh, Ali," I said. "Drive faster."

She was busy trying not to land us in a ditch, which I guess was a good thing, too, but the dog wasn't looking friendly as it approached. Yeah, we were wrapped in steel, but I had no wish to get Cujo slobber on the windows or to explain claw marks to the Captain.

We went back and through the intersection and found nothing but fields. We turned back again as I wondered if I'd entered the name of the road incorrectly. I'd never heard of a West State Road. Usually, three word-ed streets are county roads. So I changed the GPS to WCR instead of WSR.

We lost our signal, wandered some more and found ourselves back at the Cujo intersection. I mumbled something about being lost in BFE, using the three words of the acronym and taught my teenager a new word. I can already hear the detention message I'm going to get in a few weeks from her school.

Sitting at the now very familiar intersection, Ali said, "Let's just go straight."

She's a scientist. That was the one direction we hadn't tried.

"That's a driveway," I repeated.

"I bet it's a road," she said. "We are in the country."

"It's a dirt path," I said.

"Right and left didn't work," she reminded me.

"I have to pee," I said.

"Well I'm dying of thirst," she responded. "We have to get somewhere!"

We went straight and encountered a shirtless, unfriendly man coming out of a barn. Because it was a driveway.

She hit reverse again, seemingly more concerned about a close encounter with the man than she had been about the rabid dog. Backing up and turning is a new skill for her and she always has to remind herself out loud how to turn the wheel to point the car in the direction she wants. Amped up by thirst and adrenalin, she got out of there -- cleanly -- in record time.

I called my sister, Donna, who we were to meet at Briley's house. She also hadn't heard of WSR 340 and was coming from Brazil. She had the same address I did because I'd given it to her. I told her we'd drive until we got our signal back and let her know.

We found ourselves back on Indiana 59. We called Donna again. She had no clue and also hadn't heard of the WSR.

"Call Nancy," she suggested, another sister.

Nancy confirmed we had the right address all along and that WSR was really a thing. We plugged it in again, and it sent us right back to where we'd been. We waved to Cujo from the safety of our Subaru and eventually emerged onto US 40.

I remember enough about my home area geography to know that Indiana 59 intersects with US 40. If we'd stayed on the original state road, we'd have never gotten lost and been to the party on time. Stupid GPS.

The good news is that Ali and I got our diametrically opposite bodily needs met, we got to see family we hadn't seen in too long and Ali is more comfortable driving backwards.

She later drove Donna's big-ass pickup truck on US 41 on the south side of Terre Haute. The vehicle is larger than my house, so she had a tiny bit of drama turning off the highway where she and Donna met me for dinner. Two lanes of traffic turn into the street she needed and there was a vehicle right next to her as she made her turn. She apparently encroached a little bit into her neighbor's lane.

To her credit, Donna didn't yelp and Ali didn't panic.

But come to think of it, Donna hardly ever orders a cocktail at dinner and she didn't fight the suggestion.

Addendum:  While Ali and I were wandering Indiana, the Captain had another niece, Becca, on a morning whirlwind of shopping.We've been lucky to have Becca stay with us a few weeks while she takes some summer classes. She'll leave us soon to go back to Butler, which will make us all kind of sad.

It's not been too much of an eventful summer, but she had a budgetary trifecta hit. Her phone died and her car needed an oil change. Jeff likes nothing better than bargain shopping, and she and Becca had spent a good portion of Friday night talking about phones.

So they spent the morning first getting an oil change for her car, then phone shopping. Now, Jeff has hearing issues, but even he could hear her brakes grinding, so he forcibly suggested she get her car fixed, too.

The bargain he won for her phone was eaten up by the brake job, but at least she's safer.