[Its Friday and that means a story prompt from ViewfromtheSide’s Blog.  This week we explore “Secret Watcher”.  I putzed around the house this morning wondering what the heck I was going to write about and then my hubby invited me along on a trip to the hardware store. Sure I said… but would he mind a quick side trip? Here’s our story…]

Trees (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

The trees were beginning to crowd the tarmac.

The road had gone from 2 lanes to one about a mile ago. Now the trees — lush with the previous night’s rain — had encroached on the shoulder. Their branches arched overhead playing a jazzy sonata of light/not light on the windshield as they alternately allowed or blocked the sun.

I’d reduced our speed to 25 (slower than the posted 30) to compensate for the fact that we really didn’t know where we were going. It wasn’t that we were LOST exactly, we just had never travelled this path before.

That was O.K. though because, although WE didn’t know where we were going, the GPS assured us that IT DID.

Our goal was a yarn shop in South Central Pennsylvania. I’d remembered how to get to their original location from a previous visit. Alas, that was a half a decade ago and the shop had since moved.

No problem. WE had an iPhone. WE were up for adventure.

After checking the yarn shop’s web site we plugged in the new address. In seconds our secret GPS watcher in the sky plotted a course over the scenic Seven Valleys to the new spot.

Away we drove.

The hiccup came when the roads of Pennsylvania decided that life is not as clear-cut as the GPS elves up in that satellite would have it be.

On the screen the little blue dot that represented our car passed the turn that would take us to the yarn shop. In the car we saw nothing but trees.

We RECALCULATED and found a second route.

One road crested  hill and turned from smooth asphalt to crushed gravel.

NO WORRIES — we had all wheel drive! And soon enough we popped on to another paved road.

Our blue dot moved along, obeying the GPS. It indicated a right turn. I made a right turn.

A few hundred feet in the trees began to crowd us. The asphalt again turned to gravel.  We considered abandoning our faith in the GPS and turning around, but the road wasn’t wide enough.

There was only one way to go and that way was FORWARD.

So we drove forward.

The road, if you could call it that at this point, got considerably worse. An irregular strip of grass and weeds grew between the tire tracks. The tire tracks became less gravel and more mud. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

Still, hovering miles above us Big Brother cheerily showed our little blue dot closing in on the little red dot of the yard shop.

The words “How the hell do they expect any one to find them out here?” were sputtered more than once.

Finally, FINALLY, we came out of the trees into a lane that skirted a barn yard.

A skinny black kitten eyed us than ran away (YES! a sign of life!)

We drove around the barn and saw a middle school aged boy hammering aimless at an old box

“Excuse me?” I said after rolling down the window. “Do you know where the yarn shop is?”

“Yarn shop?” He rolled the words around in his mouth like they were alien to him.

“Yes, we’re looking for a yarn shop.”

“I don’t know about a yarn shop… but the fiber mill is over there.” He waved the hammer in the vague direction of a long low gray barn. He was a pleasant enough fellow, but we had waisted enough of his valuable time. He had important things to do. That box wasn’t going to beat the hell out of its self you know.

“O.K. Thanks.”

Hmmmmm. The blue dot and the red dot appeared as one.  The GPS overlord seemed to think we had arrived at our destination.

We checked the web site again. This time we saw something further down the page that said “If you are interested in visiting please feel free to make an appointment.”

Ahh.

Beyond the long low gray barn was a paved county road and the GPS happily showed us the way back to civilization.

The eye in the sky didn’t get us to the yarn shop, but it was able to find us just a good. It had pointed us squarely at adventure.