I should have known when the man on the other end of the phone started his directions by saying, "Once you get off the highway, turn right and go back under the highway about six miles until you come to a bridge. They call it the Primordial River but there is no water there, it's really just a ditch. When you cross the bridge, you'll see a red pole barn off in the distance. That's the house. The next right will take you right around to the front of the house."
Sounds simple, right? Wrong.
We got in the car and drove to the south end of town where we got off the highway and turned left, driving away from town and into the country. We passed the new county jail, a tractor dealership, a large commercial bakery (the one where they make the gummy gooey white bread that Tallulah loves!) and a soft drink bottling plant. Then we drove into an area of open fields and crossed over a small bridge that spanned what amounted to a large drainage ditch. But there was no pole barn, red or other wise. Both girls pointed out every shed that might pass as a barn but they were dismissed as not actually being barns.
Goober, always the soul of patience, snapped opened his cell phone and handed it to me. "We've gone too far...call them." So, while he turned the car around, I called and was assured that we had not gone to far....we actually had about two miles to go before we would reach the bridge we were supposed to use as a land mark.
Sooo, we turned around and drove further. We came to another little bridge, this one was full of water but still ---no pole barn. Finally, Goober turned the car around, it was getting dark and we were a good ten miles from town.
"These weren't very good directions." I said. "Next time, I'm going to ask for more land marks."
"Don't these people know that Everyone has a pole barn around here?" Gertrude asked.
"We live near alot of farms."