 |
| Seriously.. does this LOOK like a road? |
So you know we're on a quest to move 200 miles away into the mountains of north central Pennsylvania.
BEAUTIFUL area far, far away from the city and all the crap that it is and will fast become.
200 miles ONE WAY is a long way to drive.. about 3.5 hours if you stick to the highways .. more if you take local roads .. so after making the round trip in one day last week, we decided that this weekend we were going to stay over night.
It's HARD trying to rent a house and a store from far away.. Craigslist only has so much and driving aimlessly around an area that your not familiar with is even worse. Like, the PERFECT house could be one road over and you'd never know it ..
So the King and Queen of Idiocy decided it was best to grab a local paper, stay over night and spend Sunday checking out places.
This was located near Rt 87, and according to the Tom Tom, we just had to take the road that ran parallel to Rt 87 on the other side of the creek.
At first, the road wasn't bad. Wasn't paved.. but wasn't really what I would call a "dirt" road. I've since learned that what I consider a dirt road is a what locals call a damn super highway! What I didn't know is that the damn TomTom was taking us UP and AROUND the outside of a damn mountain. I mean that literally. There were some place that were no wider then my car with a 300 foot drop to nothing and no guard rail. It didn't help that there was a local driving right on my bumper because OBVIOUSLY he knew where he was going and what to expect and was really, really pissed off that I didn't.
When we got to the house, the owner explained that someone had already looked at it and looks like a deal was cut. He felt horrible because we have drove so far and honestly, I felt a little let down but after we saw the inside, it wasn't going to work for us anyway. It used to be a duplex that was re-converted into a single home but all the bedrooms were open and there wasn't any kind of privacy. The dude was a trip. This was actually his vacation home (he lived in florida) and looked like he could have been cast in an old episode of the Soprano's.. complete with gold 9mm Glock earring, pinkie ring, 4th wife and coiffed hair. It was ridiculous that he lived there but he had a great personality and I did like him.
So with no other prospects yet and time on our hands, Tim wanted to show me the mountain house that his father built in Shunk, Pa. So I punch that in the TomTom and start following the.. This time, instead of taking us AROUND it took us THROUGH the mountain in what I can only call a secondary access road or a damn fire road.
If I thought the other road was bad.. OMG!!! This one was sooooooooo much worse. Only as wide as my car but filled with pot holes and rocks sticking up and the HUGE drop into nothing.
 |
| No.. I'm sorry.. THIS ISN'T A ROAD!! |
All that and trying to avoid the pot holes and sticking up rocks? Yea.. I was more nervous then a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
I kept on having to swerve to avoid the holes and rocks and at one point when Tim was looking over the 300ft drop, I swerved and his sphincter immediately cramped.
WTF!!!!! he yelled. And started screaming that he was going to drive .. he made it seem like I didn't know what I was doing or.. worse, that I was SCARED (because, yknow, I don't "get" scared) .. and so I did what every badass city girl does when she's disappointed in house she didn't get and is driving on a PATH through a mountain with pot holes, jutting rocks and a car she doesn't trust ... I stated to cry.
If I was a devious or malicious person, I would SO use that to my advantage because me crying just makes Tim feel horrible.. worse when he causes it! But I think I only had to let out some emotion and then we were as fine as we were going to be.
We had to be on this semblance of road for 8 miles and at around the almost 6 miles mark, guess what?
 |
| Only Me |
Now to be fair, we DID see home made signs saying that the road was closed but y'know.. nothing official and we really didn't know when they were posted because they looked kind of worn.
Now we knew.
So we had to turn around and do this again for another six miles. I wasn't a happy camper but there was nothing else that could be done.
The ride back wasn't AS bad because I knew what to expect and I there weren't that many holes or jutting rocks on what had become the driver's side.
But I did see the view.. and which I hadn't. It's hard driving with a cramped sphincter!!
We finally made it back to a real, honest to God highway. Rt 14. And it only took me one more time to follow the TomTom directions and it told me to go over a bridge THAT WASN'T THERE ANY LONGER.. that I said, "Screw it .. " and just stayed on the highway. After about 20 minutes of the damn thing telling me to turn around when possible, I won that battle of wills and it recalculated. Made me drive 20 miles out of my way and through southern Tioga county but at least we got to Shunk with both me and the car in tacked.
Tim was going down memory lane.. pointing out this to me and that to me .. Him, his brothers and my BFF Pam (their cousin) had spent a lot of time there when they were young so it was fun for me to see him that animated and full of childhood stories.
He told me how the place was actually two houses since his uncle wanted his own kitchen and entrance and whatever .. so the house has two of everything on different levels.
They spent a lot of time up there being boys.. hunting, fishing, etc. and it's a shame that circumstances were what they became and his dad had to sell the property.
Apparently, it's tradition to "name" your hunting cabins in those parts and so this became "Lazy Acre" because it's located right outside of Lazytown.
Tim's dad had made the sign and it was kind of awesome to see it still there.. it used to hang but for whatever reason, it's now in a window.
Kinda cool, huh?
Okay .. so now that the trip down memory lane was over we had to get back down to business we keyed Williamsport into the TomTom to make our way back to semi-civilization by nightfall.
You know.. I'm pretty good with directions and landmarks. Once I find my way to someplace, I always remember the way out so after all the previous attempts on my life with the TomTom why I didn't follow my instincts if WAY beyond me.
Maybe I was drive-crazy .. which is exactly like being stir crazy except your in a car for 7 hours driving.
And so, once again, I let the TomTom guide us and ONCE AGAIN the TomTom put us on a damned fire road on a mountain. If I didn't think that we would need the TomTom to help the rescue people find us in the event of an emergency then I would have chucked that thing right down the 300ft drop.
I had a fear that this road was the SAME road that was blocked on our way up and we would have to turn back around but my REAL fear was the bunch of campers that we saw when we had to make a turn. Say I watch too many scary movies but I'm not going to lie and say that being on that road, in that car, at that time of almost-night got me thinking that maybe one or more of them were weekenders that might want to find out if they could murder people in the woods and get away with it.
Fortunately, it wasn't the same road and after six torturous miles, we got back to the highway and made our way to lights, fast food joints and a Dunkin' Donuts!
 |
| How Cool Is It That The Quality Inn Gives You Free All You Can Eat Popcorn? |
Found two places listed and made appointments for Sunday to go see them.
I wasn't really that into spending the money to stay over night but it was the best decision and gave us the opportunity to explore more of the area.
And sleep in a King size bed..
Without the dog or the cats stealing the blankets.
Tim, though, was a whole other story and it's amazing to me that no matter how big a bed is, his skinny ass has to take up 90% of it.
I'll post about what happened on Sunday a little later .. you won't want to miss that!!
No comments:
Post a Comment