The Wrong Road Part 1 Through 16

The Wrong Road Taken Part 1

Why the hell was I doing this?
It was around 1 a.m. and I was on a dirt road that was less of a road and more of a rutted goat path.
Thank you, GPS, for sending me down this road.

I don't know why I didn't turn around the first chance I had, but no, I had to trust that stupid GPS that this road would open up and shave forty-five minutes off my drive and avoid the road construction I had hit on the way to the conference I was attending.

The drive was pleasant, and the weather was magnificent.
The temperature was hovering around eighty degrees, and the stars were out in all their grandeur.
Being this far from the city lights, there was virtually no light pollution this far away, so the sky was wide open, and the Stars as bright as I have ever seen them.
I had the top down and was just enjoying the hell out of the drive, even if I was lost, it was at least a beautiful drive.

The conference I attended was a stroke of luck.
This was my first job, and the person who was going to attend came down with the flu.
So the boss sent me instead, an eighteen year old lad on his first job being sent to represent his company was a major ego boost.
As great as this trip has been, I was dead dog tired.
If I didn't find the main road soon and find a motel to crash, I was going to have to sleep in my car.

About twenty minutes later, I came upon an old campground that catered to those who were hiking the Appalachian Trail that ran through this area.
The decision to spend the night here was taken out of my hands, as I drove up to the office, I heard a thump, thump, thump sound coming from my car.
Getting out of my car I made the discovery of a flat tire in the rear.
That's just great, I thought. Well, let me check in, and I'll deal with the tire in the morning.

I went up to the office and pulled on the doorknob.
It took a couple of tries, but the door finally popped open.
I might as well have stayed outside, the office looks to have been closed for decades; there was dust coating every surface, and what furniture was there looked to have been there since the Civil War.
Just out of curiosity, I put my foot on the seat of one chair, and it fell apart into a dozen pieces while raising a cloud of dust as it hit the floor.
Well, so much for checking in with the management.

Leaving the office, I walked over towards one of the cabins, the first two were in worse disrepair than the office.
The third was OK, however, as I began to enter, I discovered that I would have to share this cabin with a family of raccoons.
I decided that this just wouldn't do.
Two more were just as disappointing.
Finally, the last cabin proved to be at least habitable.
There was a bed frame without a mattress there, making it all but unusable.

Going out to my car, I retrieved a couple of blankets I kept there for an emergency.
Setting the blankets on the floor, I created a little spot to curl up and sleep.

Stripping off my clothes, I crawled under the blanket.
By this time it was 1:45am.
Shutting my eyes, I fell into a light sleep.
I awoke awhile later to hit the bathroom, and in the process I glanced at my watch. That can't be right, I thought, my watch said it was now 2 a.m.
I couldn't have slept for only 15 minutes.
Well, fuck it, so back to bed.
When I awoke later, I was feeling quite refreshed thanks to a good night's sleep.

Opening the shades, I was startled to see it was still dark out.
Checking my watch, it still said 2 a.m. stupid watch had to be broken, why else would it read the same time as before?
I know that I had been asleep for at least 4 hours.
Yet the watch and the darkness outside were trying to convince me I was wrong.

Well, before I solve this mystery, I needed to clean up.
I dropped my shorts onto the rest of my clothes, walked into the bathroom, and turned on the shower.
I didn't expect there to be hot water, so I was all set to take a fast, cold shower.
I was right, hot water didn't exist, so I jumped in and took a fast shower to get the grime off me.
As I left the shower, I tried to shake off as much water as I could.
I'll have to get one of the blankets I used to sleep in to dry off.