The Last Leg
We took off from the hotel around
9:30am. I was driving. We made it to Butte without incident. Ness and I were
just doing what all good road-trippers do, blasting our music, eating junk
food, and recounting funny stories from our trip. After a while I looked up at
the GPS and said, “Good thing I looked up in time or else we would have missed
that exit.” As it turns out, we missed the turn anyway. In my defense, it was
really snowy and icy out, and I could hardly see the exit let alone slow down
in time to get onto the ramp. Thinking logically, we decided that it was no big
deal. We could just go to the next exit and turn around. Seven miles up the
road was the Deer Lodge exit. We took the exit, turned around, and started
driving east. That was when we noticed that the GPS was telling us to go 32
miles east. That was back the way we came! We didn’t want to go that way.
Instead, Janessa and I came up with a better plan. We would simply get back
onto the original exit that the GPS told us to turn onto and all would be well.
The exit was easy enough to find. We got onto the ramp, turned around, and
headed back west. Perfect… Or rather it wasn’t. It didn’t take us long to
realize that our plan was slightly flawed. Since we just found the exit and
turned right back around, it was like we had missed the original ramp all over
again. Great. Another turn around was in order. Not wanting to get onto another
ramp, we thought maybe it would be alright if we just used a median. You know
the places where cops sit and hang out, the ones with the signs that say “Authorized
Vehicles Only”. We found a good one and hurriedly flipped a “U” and just like
that were headed east again. Janessa came up with a plan. “Let’s just drive
until we see the sign for the original exit that GPS wanted us to take on the
opposite side of the road. Then we’ll just find another median, turn around,
and take the exit.” That idea sounded genius to me, so we put it into effect.
After a few minutes Ness spotted the sign, so then she was on the lookout for a
nice median to turn around in. The first one we came to was too snowy. We would’ve
gotten stuck for sure. After a few more miles, we saw another one. We had our
hazard lights going and were starting to get a little bit flustered. Janessa
starts yelling “Yeah, this is a good one! Turn! Turn!” I think it’s a good one
too, so I turn into it.
The second I turned, I realized how dumb
it was to do so. We were stuck in a median for authorized vehicles only making
an illegal u-turn. For the first minute or so there was nothing we could do about
it, because we were both just laughing too hard. Great! Finally we regained our
composure somewhat and assessed the situation. We had to get out of there
before we got caught. The car had other plans though and would just not budge.
Janessa tried pushing, but to no avail. Then she had a wonderful idea. She
sprinkled cornuts around the tires, for traction. I was just so impressed with
my friend’s ingenuity! It was quite unfortunate that it didn’t work. After
about 15 minutes of pushing and shoveling around the tires (with an ice
scraper) a snow plow came by and started slowing down. Needless to say, Ness
and I were just so embarrassed. We tried to hurry and get out before the guy
could get to us, but nope. He told me to straighten out and back up. I did so.
Then he came up to my window and said, “We’re going to push. Keep your tires
straight, drive until you get across the road, wait there, and don’t use these
medians anymore. It’s illegal.” As if we didn’t know! I’m sure we would have
gotten out eventually by ourselves. Janessa came running across the road, doubled
over with laughter. Then right after we started driving again another car
turned around in the median we had just got stuck in. It was ridiculous. At
least we were heading west again though.
Our trip had been a little bit delayed.
That was ok though, because we were finally going to get back onto the original
exit that GPS had told us to take. The problem was that the GPS had other plans
for us. It told us to turn onto a ramp that was like three exits before the one
we wanted to take. After much debate, Ness and I decided to trust the GPS.
Well, then we were upset that we had listened to it, because it was just
telling us to turn back around and go east AGAIN for 32 miles. No way were we
going to do that! I pulled the car over and for a second wondered if we should
just ignore the GPS and keep going west. Why should we go back 32 miles in the direction
that we had just come from? I took my phone out to see what my GPS would say…
It said the same thing. We still didn’t like that answer, so Janessa took her
phone out to check if her GPs might
have a different answer. No such luck. With three different navigating systems
against us, Janessa and I decided that we should probably turn back around and
head east for 32 miles. We passed the plow guy who helped us (yeah, the one who
helped us get out of an illegal median to head west), which was quite
embarrassing. After thinking about it long and hard, Ness and I came to a
conclusion about why we were so turned around. We had taken a wrong turn
somewhere around Butte and had driven 32 miles west (AKA in the wrong
direction). The whole ordeal (what with going 64 miles out of our way and
getting stuck) added about an hour and a half extra to our trip. We sure felt
dumb after that. Heck, how could we not? But hey, at least we got an hour’s
worth of extra laughs out of it. What a great trip! |
| The blue is where we wanted to go...Deer Lodge is where we ended up before we turned around. |
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