On a much-needed break last weekend, my friends and I drove to the beach for a two-day retreat from reality. We holed up in a chalet surrounded by marshlands, where the surf sounds drifted to us over red-osier dogwoods and gentle hills. Between the board games and ballgames, we almost neglected to find the beach at all -- on Sunday, we finally decided to follow the homeowner's handwritten directions to the shoreline. It promised to be an easy, 15-minute walk across the marsh...
...Except we forgot that it had rained recently, which meant the marsh was...marshier. Our trail petered off into a giant lagoon, and we decided to turn around and walk back to the house, where we could follow the main road to another beach entrance further south...
...Except somehow, we didn't follow the right trail. A few minutes into our trek, we ran into another lagoon. And another.
"Shit," one of my friends said. "Is this even possible?"
We thrashed about on various deer trails and manmade trails for another 20 minutes, following one promising lead after another until each one ended in muck. I was the only one wearing hiking boots, and no one else had a second pair of pants. Because the reeds were waist or shoulder-high, we often couldn't see the water until we were in it up to our shins. Like the bright, 21st century humans we were, we continued shoving through the brush.
"This is ridiculous," another friend said. "I can see the goddamn house from here!"
It hovered over the horizon like a mirage. We could actually hear the neighbors talking on their back porch, but we were damned if we were going to start calling for help. As we stumbled around, we started texting friends and updating LiveJournal accounts. Because those are the survival skills you amass in modern society.
"How many years of education do we have between us?" I asked.
"Can you imagine the search and rescue call we're going to have to make? 'Help, we're stuck in a swamp! What? Oh, about 100 yards from the house.'"
"Can't we just pave the damn swamp?"
"Maybe we should have driven through it."
"Yeah, that'd be good. Hi, AAA? Yeah, could you come tow my car out of a swamp?"
"I bet there are coyotes out here. Really hungry ones."
I broke off from the group and tried climbing straight over the hills, but I only managed to snag some deadwood and tumble into a cluster of reeds and pokey things. Finally, after an hour, we gave up and turned south, deciding to soldier on until we found the main road to the beach. Exhausted and triumphant, we burst onto the trail with a rousing victory cry, only to discover several bystanders and dog walkers who'd been watching our trek with some bemusement. The beach was freezing and awful and awash with SUVs (whose bright idea was it to make our state beach a national highway?), and we spent approximately 10 minutes there because we figured we had to after all that.
As we walked home, we surveyed our surroundings. "Oh, hell," someone said. "That wasn't our house."
I turned around. "What do you mean?"
He pointed in the direction of the house we'd been trying to reach. "That house is too far south. Our house is over there."
We stopped in our tracks and stared over the horizon at the cheerful peaked roof of our chalet.
"Fuck it," my friend muttered. "I'm staying in and watching football for the rest of the weekend."
Oh yeah! I found you again (at least your site). I had lost the link. And who knew you were so close to being lost for good? Glad to hear you made it out.
Posted by: Kristy | January 30, 2008 at 05:42 PM