Spring Break: An Unexpected Turn

Part 3: An Unexpected Turn

The drive back was just as good as the drive there. We listened to music, talked, laughed, and slept (except me, or at least you’d hope not). At one point, everyone was asleep, so I was following the GPS instead of taking directions from Handerson. However, Leaf woke up as I was making a turn, and told me we were going a different way than we came. He was pretty sure he recognized it, as did Handerson, and they both assured me it’d be fine. 

This is where things took an unexpected turn, quite literally. I turned, then missed a sharp turn, turned around, and corrected myself. It was at this point that we became concerned. No one could recognize the area and we could see on the GPS map that we were on a road full of sharp twists and bends. It was a steep country road, each turn popping up out of nowhere, unable to be seen with the headlights until it was almost too late to turn the wheel. To make matters worse, there were steep drop-offs on both sides of the road, making it all the more important to turn fast enough. Although I felt embarrassed, I drove slowly. I had to be careful with the car and I’m not used to dark, back country roads such as this. It seemed like the road would never end, and each bend made my heart race and stop at the same time. I can only imagine how confused the car behind us was. 

Finally, the turns became a little less sporadic and I was able to relax a bit. This didn’t stop us from being confused as heck as to where we were. However, we managed to have fun with it all the while. We began coming across large groups of deer along the countryside. At one point Leaf stood out of the sunroof again, hoping to shine his flashlight on them. It was around this time that I realized the sky was clear and the stars were out. I sadly made a comment about how I wish we could just stop and star gaze for awhile (star gazing in the country has been one of the top things on my bucket list since I can remember). In response, everyone told me to just pull over and do it, to which I happily obliged. The other car pulled up next to us, still confused as to where we were and why, or why we were stopping. We simply responded that we took this detour just to star gaze (heh).

We all stood around in the cold and looked up. It was astounding. I have never seen that many stars in my life. A few of us, including myself, saw shooting stars. But atlas, all good things must come to an end. Despite my protest, everyone was cold and wanted to get back on the road. I could have stared at that big sparkling sky all night. As we were about to leave, we all decided to get Grub Truck when we got back to town. However, by the time we finally made it to Moscow, we found out the other car had changed their minds. So I dropped everyone off, one by one, until it was only Charli and I. Her and I decided to go to Sheri’s and get pie milkshakes (I had tried convincing the group back in the hot springs, and again in the country, to get these amazing milkshakes, but they were scaredy cats).

So Charli and I went. We got pie milkshakes and loaded hash browns and sat there talking for a long while. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day. 

To be continued...