1467 Since Thursday...

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Thursday I went to NJ. The 2.5 hour trip took 5.0 hours because of an accident on (the OTHER side of) the Garden State Parkway.

Explored the kids' new house. It's very small, but it's in a pleasant neighborhood, I think.

Then I went to meet a friend for the evening. Daughter gave me directions and a map, and the 40 minute trip took me 75 minutes, because I had to keep pulling over to consult the map, kept missing turns, and most of the turns where that happened you have to go quite a distance to find a "jughandle" to make a U-turn, so I was very late meeting him. Central NJ is one of those places where it really is true that "you can't get there from here". But it worked out ok, and we had some good talking time together. Which we needed.

Friday I went back to the kids' new house and spent the day spackling and sanding walls, and the evening helping pack. The moving truck was to come Saturday morning.

The drive home was uneventful. I don't remember what time I got home, but I didn't get to bed until after 4 am Saturday. I got up about noon, handled some business, and then the power went out about 6 pm (storm with very bad very close lightning). That also means no water, and no house phone.

Lit some candles, read some magazines, called Daughter (cell) - move went well, bed was set up and made and they were going to sleep in the new house, but they couldn't find their pillows. My power came back on at about midnight. I had some research I had been doing on the internet, so I got back to that, and didn't get to bed until, again, 4 am-ish.

A friend and I planned to hike around the lake at Mohonk Mountain House (do go look at these pictures, too), so I was up at 7:30 am Sunday. The hike around the lake was nice. I've been there many times before, but on the Overcliff/Undercliff/Tower trails. The lake trail was new to me. It was short. So then we got feisty and decided to walk the 1.5 miles back to the day-hike parking area instead of taking the shuttle. Piece of cake, right?

Well, the trails were marked with "to 'name'" signs, but badly marked. Hell, half the trails led to 'name' one way or another! We had a map, but at an intersection, there was no way to tell exactly where you were on the map, which intersection, which made the map useless. I was confident that we'd eventually find the parking lot, because when we left the hotel grounds the shuttle road was to our right and to the left was a steep dropoff to the valley below (the hotel is on a ridge, as you can see from the photos. The mountain drops off behind the hotel). So as long as we didn't cross the shuttle road or fall off a cliff, we'd be heading the right direction. But my companion panicked. I think if she'd been able to tell them accurately where she was, she'd have called 911.

When we finally came out on the highway, she insisted that we had to turn to the left and go down the (steep!) road to get to the parking lot. I knew that the parking lot was on the ridge at the top of the mountain, to our right, up the road, but she was so freaked at that point I knew there was no point arguing. So I just followed her, and hoped she'd reconsider or figure it out on her own. She didn't. We went down about a half mile of "trucks use first gear" road, when I flagged down a pickup truck and asked the driver "Parking lot that way, right? (pointing up.)" He confirmed, I called to my companion (who wasn't interested in anything I had to say at that point), and we turned around and started up again. She started sticking her thumb out, and (wow) the fifth car or so stopped and picked her up. I chose to walk. Those last fifteen pounds, dontcha know....

When I got to the parking lot, she was nowhere to be seen. I called her cell and left a message that I hoped she got home ok, and I went home. Did some grocery shopping on the way home, and arrived to find a message from her that she had complained to the gate staff and customer service people about their maps and signs, and they had refunded her money.

As a member, she had paid $2 for the day. I had paid $21. It had never occurred to me to complain. I still wouldn't. They've been using those same maps for thirty years that I know of, and they haven't lost any guests yet. We just didn't use the map properly, didn't keep track of where we were, didn't really think about it. She had the map in her pack and had spent more time waving it around and complaining than looking at it.

Well, except for the minor hysterics, **I** enjoyed the day.
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