Calamity on the Road

The first challenge occurred after eating a leisurely lunch of shrimp and grits – kind of an interesting combination. And after I impulsively buy a floral-patterned pair of linen pants.

The temperature was 92 degrees outside when my air conditioner stopped working. Highly irritated and sweating profusely, I made a split-second decision to bypass Fayetteville and head straight to Newport News. I assumed two things:

• that when the sun went down, the car’s interior would naturally cool off
• that there was a BMW dealership in Newport News that could hopefully fix my car’s air conditioning.

Assumption #1 proved faulty. By 8:30 pm, though darkness was closing in, the car remained hot as hell. I was sweaty. I was sleepy – and I had at least three more hours to travel to reach  Newport News, Virginia.

When it started raining heavily, accompanied by sharp flashes of lightening and loud, banging thunder, I began lamenting the whole “running away from home” endeavor and my cavalier, free-spirited attitude about driving the East Coast solo.

As I exited off I-95 to finish the last leg of my trip to Newport News, fog was swirling all around me. I stopped for gas. And tried to figure out why my GPS on my I Phone was no longer talking to me and why it was routing me in a different direction than my car’s navigation system.

I spent the next ninety minutes driving down dark, deserted, curvy two-lane backroads, while my GPS mileage count continued to hover around “forty-two miles” to Newport News.

I did two things.

1. I repeatedly assured myself that I was okay. “There is no need to panic,” I sternly admonished myself. “I have a tankful of gas and a fully charged car phone. And eventually I have to hit some sign of civilization.”
2. I looked for the humor. And irony. I’m the one who stubbornly declared to every family member who dared question my decision to drive up the coast alone that I was fully capable of handling unexpected events. And further, I’m always the one in the car who wants to exit the highway and drive the scenic route. Well, I got my wish.

Around midnight, I capitulated and finally called my youngest son to help me out. He instructed me to take a screenshot of what was appearing on my GPS and send it to him. He helped me figure out where I was, where I should be and how I should get there

About an hour later, I pulled into my sister’s driveway.

Assumption #2 proved accurate. The BMW dealership was able to fix my air conditioning. And my sister and her husband and I went out to dinner to celebrate my arrival.

“Lock your doors immediately,” he sternly instructed me. “You are in just about the most crime-ridden section of the city.” He  then literally remained on the phone with me until I pulled into their driveway thirty minutes later. We went out for dinner and drank to my safe, but perilous, arrival.

I never took one wrong turn when I went from my son’s home to Newark two days later to pick my husband up from the Newark Airport. It was then that it finally dawned on me what the lesson was to be learned from “My Running Away From Home” trip.

Remember the play Fiddler on the Roof? Remember the lyrics from the songFar from the Home I Love? There is one line in that song that encompasses the lesson I learned: “There with my love, I’m home.”  

I’m convinced that we always do find our way home. And Home has always been and always will be right beside my husband.