Monday, August 16, 2010

Climate and Direction

It is another Monday morning, a start of another work week for some. Maybe I ought to check my email to see if I have any work to do, will be right back.

Well, that was quick, nothing. Been that way since back in July, but that is OK with me. I read The Old Fat Man Adventures and am envious. The weather conditions that he described just made me drool. Looked out the window at the motor-home and asked myself what the heck am I doing here!?!? By 06:30 this morning it rained a little and the temperature is at chilling low of 78 degrees (and going up fast). Who in their right mind living in this area would pay good money for a sauna when all they need to do is step outside? The day before yesterday it sprinkled rain and the temperature was 99 degrees. I stuck my head outside and it hurt to breathe. Then yesterday it was 102 degrees in the shade and I don’t even want to know what the weather forecast is for today.

Not going to head to cooler situations just now. I have too many things up in the air.

I was just wondering about the “sense of direction” that some people have and some do not. My family moved to the country before I started to school, so I must have been 5 or 6 years old. I spent almost all of my outdoor time in the forest behind our house. It was no little plot of trees, but covered many square miles. I knew every inch of it and never got lost. As I aged, and went hunting, I still retained my sense of direction.

My sense of direction was only good in the woods. You could drive me to a spot where I had never been, park the car, get out and walk around hunting half the day, and I could turn around and walk right back to the car without giving it a second thought. Must have sub-consciously kept track at every turn and what direction the car was after the turn.

Get me out of the woods and I get lost all the time. I got lost in a “two traffic light” town, I have been lost in towns and cities of all sizes, and I went the wrong way across a whole State one time. What you say? Yep a whole State.

I was working a project for G.E. Nuclear Fuels and Components on the east coast of N.C. and my home was (and is) in Cut & Shoot, TX. Well, one time my wife wanted to go back to Texas and I wanted to change vehicles so that I could have the 4-wheel drive at the beach. My son and a friend drove the 4w drive from Texas and my wife and I from N.C. and met in eastern Alabama where we spent the night at a motel. I got up to a cloudy, overcast morning and decided to head back before everyone else was ready. So headed off on down the Interstate, that is, until I saw the sign welcoming me to Mississippi. WHAT, how did that state get on east side of Alabama.

Well, at the next exit, I turned around. A while later, I saw my other vehicle coming toward me in the west bound lane. I flashed my lights, honked my horn, and waved at them. When they went by I saw their surprised looks and their mouths hanging open. Almost could hear them say “what the heck!!!”.

If I were a bird, I would migrate north in the autumn and South in the spring or East and West or . . . who knows, I am lost already.

4 comments:

  1. Like you I never had a "lost" direction,,EXCEPT when I went to UTAH. To me every road in that state is headed the wrong way.

    Now, as a disclaimer,since my stoke I'm can't trust my instincts like I used to, I get close, but that goodness for a good ole GPS!

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  2. Yea Ben, I know what you mean. You know, when I get in a city, I even get that woman in my GPS so confused, she gets lost, too.

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  3. Hey Dick,
    You need to let your wife navigate, we women have a built-in sense of direction. When I moved to Dallas in 1972, I left Cincinnati without even a road map, much less a GPS, and drove right to the door of the apt they had rented for me in Carrollton! With a few stops for sleeping along the way. I knew I was headed southwest, I just followed the signs, but as we all say, I was young and dumb then, I would never attempt such a thing now, too cautious, and if you left me in a wooded area I would never find my way out!

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  4. That was an adventure, Kathie. You know, we are never really lost unless we want to be found.

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