Some people navigate with precise instructions. “Go north on Central Avenue to 30th Street. Turn left. Go three blocks, and the office will be on your right.”
Other people navigate by landmark. “Take this street up to the stoplight. Turn left. Turn right just past the big maple tree, and the office will be there.”
When I was learning to drive, I was the despair of my precise father. “You can’t drive by landmarks,” he would say. “What will you do when the big maple tree isn’t there any more?”
I was rather smug when, years later, I was able to get around by noticing the daylilies or remembering where the farmer’s silo used to be.
But today I learned the lesson Daddy tried to teach me all those years ago. I was delivering food to a trailer court that doesn’t show up on Google Maps. Megan said, “Go out past the old campground and there’s a barn that they converted into a church, but I don’t know if it’s still a church. Turn right. You’ll see it.”
Just past the old campground the highway curves to the right, and I was past the intersection – didn’t even see the intersection – before I saw the steeple on the converted barn. I figured my turn was up ahead. I drove in circles for 15 minutes until, approaching from the south instead of from the north, I found the right road.
If Megan had said, “Turn right on 175 South,” I would have found it right away.
Somewhere in heaven, my dad is laughing.
