In Robert Frost's famous poem, he wrote of the fork in the road and choosing to take the road less traveled. Last night, we faced one of those proverbial forks in the road and we opted to take . . . the road less traveled.
Venturing off into the bush from the main road (actually it was only a two-lane road in the boonies) we drove in the pitch black night through a tree and bush-lined one-lane road hoping to find a remote campground (at least the map said it existed). As bush after bush wacked the rental car (why didn't I buy that extra insurance!!!!) and the brush growing in the middle of the road grew higher and higher, I remembered my mom's last comment to me, "Don't do anything foolish." (Sorry, Mom, this qualified!) We had been driving for about an hour when we saw a huge spider (nearly as big as a tarantula) hanging in the middle of the road, Susan said, "No one has been out here in forever." As the massive spider crashed into the window, my only hope was that the massive spider, which was now on my side of the car, would not be there to greet me when we arrived.
After 90 minutes of driving, it was clear that we would be doing a u-turn if we ever reached the end of the road. Then, dread of all dreads, we saw something that we could not believe: there was a closed gate in the middle of the road. "How would we turn around?", I thought. Would we have to back out the entire way--like we had to do on that Tahitian mountain when we tried to see a waterfall in a car that was no bigger than one of those cars that kids drive outside of grocery stores. But then the road bent and we realized that the gate belonged to someone's private driveway. Great, now we also had to worry about the crazy person who lived out in the middle of nowhere.
On we went for 5 more kilometers until we saw the sign for Bustard Beach. "How many people can say they have been to Bustard Beach?" I asked Susan. Before long I saw the sign for the vacant campground and to our great surprise there was a group of "schoolies." "Schoolies" are kids who just graduated from high school. They had a huge bonfire going. And to our greater surprise, they were happy to see us! There were 11 of them, but they said that they were lonely. (That's teen lingo for "scared.") After greeting one another, they promised not to be too loud. We assured them that they could be as loud as they wanted to be, for it was spooky out there and the noise helped relieve the spookiness of it all.
In the morning, we spend some more time getting to know them and gave them all See's suckers. And one of them gave his heart to the Lord. The road less traveled was well worth it, spiders and all.
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2 comments:
Thank you for sharing the story. Loved it! I'll make sure to tell the spider story to the family tomorrow morning. We miss you all. Stay safe and out of trouble.. :-)
This is such a cool story! I can just see Susan's face when she saw that giant spider web blocking the road, LOL!
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