Sticking The Landing Part 2

We find me at the point in the story as I am leaving Amarillo with Bugs the bunny after a fender bender detoured me on my journey to California, August 26th 2022.

Over the course of days I was at the hotel I'd looked at the rest of my route thoroughly. With only 15 hours to go, I planned to drive to and stay in Flagstaff for the night.

I took extra care to connect my phone to the van's Bluetooth. I had driven halfway across the country unable to access my audio books. Technology has a way of putting me over the edge. Modern conveniences or efficiencies often are not either convenient or efficient for me. While the van had Bluetooth it did not have a GPS feature built in. "People always use their phones anyway," the sales person had said. She was right I guess. I had sent the directions from my computer to my phone the night before.

I made sure Audible was able to play through the speakers feeling confident as I got on Highway 40.

About an hour into the trip I start seeing sign's for Highway 54 and Route 66. I peeked at my phone to check the map since it is not displayed on my dash. I am stunned to realize I hadn't pushed start for the GPS to guide me.

So I do. I press start.

Immediately through the speaker I'm told to take the next exit off the highway.

I had been sure Highway 40 was supposed to take me all the way to Arizona.

SHE tells me again to prepare to take the next exit.

So I do.

It doesn't seem right.

Something is wrong.

But I comply.

The GPS knows better than me I assume. It must be rerouting past an accident or something. I stay on the two lane road for awhile. It doesn't tell me to do anything different.

After some time, the only thing I see for miles is a UPS truck ahead of me. The anxiety as getting worse. I CAN'T lose them. I speed up. Suddenly, a car out of no where comes barreling up behind me. I am going 80 MPH to stay with the UPS truck. This vehicle, a matte silver/gray car without plates my memory says, passes me and stays ahead of me for a short time, then pulls to my right. My mind says - they must be realizing this is the wrong way for them, still unsure if it is the wrong way for me. I don't brake. I can not lose the truck. For a split second I look to see a man in this silver vehicle look behind him, then slow and disappear.

I can't process it. Was that? Should I?

All I can think beyond the panic gushing out my pores and lungs was, "Don't lose sight of the truck!" It's a UPS truck, it had to be going somewhere in this land of nowhere, a business or a home. I dismiss the weird silver car, now long gone, not even sure if it had happened.

I follow the truck for a long time. My GPS does not change my course...

I am not joking to say that there is nothing but red dirt and rocks in every direction. I had never been in the actual desert before, someplace so barren of life.

No humans.

No homes.

No other cars.

At some point, I lose sight of the truck. 90 miles per hour was too fast for my weighted down mini-van.

I am not okay.

I am at war between my ears spilling out into the car through my eyes and throat.

On one side, Fear, vibrated through me. There were screams - there were tears - there were plea's. There was berating, belittling and beating the dead horse of why I didn't I turn around sooner? I go over the failures of my utter unpreparedness like the fact that - I had no water...What would happen to Bug's? What if I broke down? Visions of wild dogs and other predators blinded me. On and on the deluge of dread ran through my veins.

On the other side, Grace, calmly reminded me what I professed to believe, "Trust that whatever happens, it will be fine. The right person will come along to help if necessary." Grace flooded my mind with examples of when what seemed impossible, worked out just fine in the end for me.

I discover this child flailing with irrationality and the adult whose experience could put the other at ease, both exist within me.

It's an important revelation.

It ties into what I missed in Tulsa - but I didn't know that at the time.

What I did know was, the same small voice that urged me to stay in Tulsa, prompted me again now to stop the van in the middle of nowhere and figure out how to get back on course.

So this time, I do.

I pull over in this place that I am not exaggerating to say, felt like Mars. Three of the photos below are of the actual planet one is the Google Earth image of where I was lost.

It doesn't take long for me to discover the cause of the off-roading was my brilliant idea to change the settings the day before to "avoid highways" on my way to the Amarillo Police Department. Being furious with myself serves no purpose now, but I am. Then I find even having made that adjustment, I was not going to be led out of here by Google.

I have no bars.

There is no service.

No service.

I'm sure I shed some more tears.

How could I not?

I didn't let myself spiral too far, Grace being the winner at that point over fear. I recounted more loudly than the terror tried to scream, all of the times Goodness and Mercy had gotten me through when I had been lost before.

Not lost like THIS lost...but still.

"All I ever knew to do was the next right thing," I hear myself say. Then I hear Fear taunt, "PFFFFT wasn't changing the GPS to 'avoid highways' your last next right thing Genius?"

Still, I do know that I was heading in the right general direction towards California - so I continue on Mars in the direction I had been until cell service, signs of life or an actual sign directs me to the next right step...

Lyrics bubbled up out from a song that carried me through some storms years ago:

"I know you didn't bring me out here to drown"

I feel confident that Bugs and I are not going to become prey to coyotes or crooks.

Still it is a very long time before I see any signs for 91, The Army Corp of Engineers and Santa Rosa Lake.

I know from the map that still can't be updated due to lack of cell service, that if I turn left on 91 the opposite direction of the Santa Rosa Lake, I would get back to Highway 40. I am sure that I had understood the map. I sense a confirming unction to turn left.

So I do...

Part 3