The Dirt Road

I'm going to take a slight break from my Ecuador story. 


The other day I was searching the nearest town with a Wal-Mart for a silver clutch. Think that's an easy task? Think again please. Not only could I not find a silver clutch. I couldn't even FIND a clutch! Oh the little inconvienences that living in a small town can bring...


I then dropped off my friend, Alexandra, at her house and made my way back to mine via the GPS I named Martha. It was getting to be about 8:30 PM. I'm a sixteen year old whose license doesn't allow her to drive after nine. The needle in Patricia the Jeep is slowly inching towards nothing. And I'm in the middle of nowhere following some ill GPS voice. 


Farms are all around me and Martha instructs me to turn down this dirt road. I'm not too worried though because I can see it intersects with a large paved highway about a hundred yards down. I roll down this dirt road and put my hands on the blinker to signify which way I'll be going when I look down at Martha and she's saying go straight. 


Straight where? There is a dirt road going to some folks house up ahead. I know I am about to pull up in their driveway all, "Hey! Martha sent me up here." The police would be called ASAP.


But for some strange reason, I trust Martha. I go down this dirt road big enough for one and notice the homemade speed limit signs near the ground. Fifteen miles per hour. Ok, I'll go fourteen. I pass the houses expecting more and then I'm surrounded by trees. Ok twenty miles per hour. 


I can almost feel big foot running behind me, I pump up the One Direction on the radio and bump it up to twenty-five miles per hour. 


A freak lightning storm starts. Hello thirty miles per hour. 


Its 8:45. I've got fifteen minutes to get home. Thirty-five miles per hour. 


By the end of the twenty minute dirt road escapade I was testing the off-road ability of Patricia the Wrangler at forty-five miles per hour. And finally I see houses. And praise the Lord the road is now paved. 


I congratulate myself on making it out of the death woods, give it one last look in the rear view mirror, and make it home by nine.