Getting lost and loving it!

It is a common misconception that because I travel with Dave, I actually spend all my time with him. The truth is I travel with Dave so that I can at least spend SOME time with him. He is leaving tomorrow for Minneapolis and will not be back until Wednesday night. I will spend three days and two nights without human contact save by phone or email in a city where I have no friends or family. I don’t really care for that. Especially since it comes hard on the heels of his spending three days in Washington last week.

At least I wasn’t lonely last week, because my dear friend Yvonne dropped by for a visit. She had to fly halfway across the country and then hop a bus to do it, but it was so sweet of her to stop by. No, she didn’t travel all the way from Tennessee just to see me. She was out here visiting her brother and his father, and hopped a Greyhound to spend a day or two with me. She must really love me. I have ridden on Greyhounds. And the buses are even worse.

We had a great time. We spent a day at the zoo, which is one of the most wonderful places in the entire world. Yvonne is a world-class walker, so we saw pretty much the entire zoo in one day. We took a round trip skylift to see the zoo by air, and Yvonne, who doesn’t hesitate to jump onto a roller coaster, was holding on for dear life. She cracks me up. I found out she speaks fluent animal, as she was able to get every animal we encountered to turn and let us see its better side. We had a delicious lunch of lobster quesadillas, and a terrific dinner at the Stuart Anderson Black Angus just down the road from the apartment. I introduced her to mocha frappuccinos, which she loved, and crème brulee, to which she was indifferent. [Philistine :) ]

Yvonne and I always have a great time together, even when we are completely lost, as we were for a good part of her visit. We got lost getting to the zoo… but we got there. We got lost coming home from the zoo… but we got there. We got lost on the way to the bus station… but we got there, and timely, too. I think it was unnecessarily cruel of Yvonne to declare that I could get lost in a desert. The fact that it is true is immaterial. I’m glad she doesn’t know I got lost TWICE on the way home from the bus station after dropping her off. Missed a turn-off, back- tracked, got back on the route, missed a second turn –off, back-tracked, got back on route… and landed smack in the middle of the morning rush hour, which didn’t make me nervous at all.

There is something you must know about me. I get lost. A lot. Even in Tullahoma, where I have lived for 25 years. It’s one of my skills. I cannot read a map, I have no sense of direction, and if I deviate from the route laid out for me, I have a devil of a time finding my way back. It used to really stress me. And my children. Jake refused to get in the car without his teddy bear Ted for comfort when he was little. Then he just started refusing to get in the car. Neither of my children seem to have much fear of getting lost, and I don’t as much as I did anymore. I think it’s because of all the years I used to get lost for a living.

It’s not that someone paid me to get lost, though I can think of a couple of people who would like to. I got paid for going places, and since I always got lost, I made my living by getting lost. I worked for the TVA Energy Sourcebook program, conducting seminars for primary school teachers on how to use of the lesson plans in the Sourcebook as part of their science curriculum. This meant I would get a call telling me to be somewhere in my service area at such and such a time on such and such a date with several demonstrations prepared for so and so many teachers. I was a very good at every aspect of this job but getting places. And getting home again. I always factored in an hour “getting lost” time at both ends of the trip, and I always needed it.

So here I am, alone in San Diego, about to spend the next three days going places by myself and completely sure that I will get lost several times. Sure wish Vonnie was going to be here to keep me company. However, I have discovered two very comforting things about driving in San Diego. All roads lead either to the zoo or to Friars Road, and I live at one of those two places. Chances are, I will find it.