Round About and Back...

Once again we begin with backstory.  Friday night I attended a concert.  I went to support four of my comrades who were performing.  Most especially the tall redhead who gave me the flyer and who, unless she is out sick, has the voice that I listen to when I lose pitch in a particularly difficult passage...she never fails me.

The program was one of contatas and was held in a venue that is exceptional:  a modern church with good acoustics -most modern churches being either large halls with MUCH electronic sound reinforcement and AV equipment or full of acoustic tile and hard angles where sound goes to die in corners.

On the way back I chose to take "back roads".  My family asked "why".  I couldn't answer them at the time, but now I know.   I don't see at night as well as I used to and there was some little voice in my head saying, "don't take the freeway".  It said, "stick to slower back roads where you will get lost in the dark, but there won't be much oncoming traffic to blind you with their headlights."  I listened to that little voice and it took me almost an hour and a half to get home from a venue that was 20 minutes away.

I was within a mile of home when I took a wrong turn.  I tried to follow a "short cut" that The Bearded One usually takes - it avoids three busy intersections.  In the middle of an industrial park, confused by the many large containers parked along the roadside, I turned right when I should have turned left.

When I saw a street sign that I recognised I immediately turned left on on the road, not realizing that I was MUCH farther east than I thought.  Taking another (incorrect) turn, I wound up in the middle of a nature preserve that wound around hills and through
marshes with nowhere to turn around.  I was saved from complete panic by the fact that there were occasional lights from widely spaced homes that told me that I was not all that far from civilization.  Much time passed while I watched the gas gauge and wished that I had filled up that evening rather than waiting until my usual Sunday fill up...

Eventually, I saw lights (including a traffic light).  I kept going until I saw a sign for a fire station labelled with its municipality and realized that I had traveled over 20 miles toward the coast.  I eventually found my way home and told my family the story of my harrowing journey.

They were unimpressed.

It was a great concert.