Your GPS Cannot Save You Now

Scene: Small country store and gas station in Eastern Vermont at 7 o'clock in the evening. My friends and I have been looking for a local ski area where presentations and pie would be dispensed on the subject of community ski areas in the northeast. Going off of instructions that basically stated drive to a fork in the road, bend right, and go 9.5 miles we, not surprisingly, are now lost. I pull open the dusty, metal front door immediately across from the only two rusty gasoline pumps to find no one behind the counter but four men idly resting adjacent to it doing nothing in particular.

Me: Y'all know where the Northeast Slopes is at?

Young guy in cap: Northeast Slopes?

Old man standing: Northeast Slopes in Cooksville.

Old man sitting: *Gibberish.*

Me: Cooksville?

Old man standing: Yeah, you know where Cooksville's at?

Old man sitting: *More gibberish.*

Young guy in cap: Yeah you go right down the highway....

Me: Right? That way or that way? *Pointing to my right and left.*

Young guy in cap: Right that away. *Point to his right and my left.* You go about... oh three miles...

Old man standing: 3.4 miles.

Young guy in cap: 3.4 miles till you get to the first road running off to the left.

Middle aged guy in overalls: Ain't it the second left?

Old man standing: Well the first left's right out of town and it's not really a left, more of a switchback in the other direction....

Young guy in cap: Well it's your first real left just past Marty's Auto Repair shop so look for that. Called Brook road.

Old man standing: Right.

Young guy in cap: You turn left past Marty's and you'll start going up hill for three or four miles. The road will twist and turn a lot and there'll be a lot of little roads going off to the right, but the right you want is about four miles down and it crosses a bridge. You cross that bridge.

Me: Okay. Left after Marty's. Go uphill about three or four miles. Take the right across the bridge.

Young guy in cap: Yep. Then you'll drive about another mile past a dairy and a farm and you'll reach Cooksville. Go the town hall in Cooksville and it's right across the road. That's where the Northeast Slopes meetin's at.

Me: *I reiterate the instructions, thank them, and turn to leave.*

Young guy in cap: *reiterates the exact same instructions and agrees.*

Old man standing: *chuckling* Good luck!

All: *laugh as if its the funniest thing they've ever heard.*

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, their instructions were entirely correct. Marty's garage, the bridge on the right, the dairy about a mile down the road; all were where they should be. We arrived just in time to hear about the lost ski areas of Vermont and just in time for coffee and pie. This was followed of course by a pie auction where the big winner sold for $18.50 and the biggest loser for $8.00. Just another crazy Friday night in New Hampshire.