Getting lost in my own driveway…

Yes, I’m a bad man. I sometimes willfully violate the civilized laws which make life better for us all.

In this particular case, I actually had the effrontery to sneak into town, driving a motor vehicle sans valid driver’s license. I’ll probably go to hell. But the truth is my dirty laundry had gotten completely out of control. I figure an hour and a half in a laundromat was punishment enough, but probably the State wouldn’t agree.

For a few moments there, though, I thought nature was going to take a hand in my punishment. The weather forecast called for snow, and it waited until I was a couple of miles from home before it delivered. But then it delivered with a righteous vengeance. I know the dirt “roads” in the gulch quite well, so everything was fine until I shifted into 4-wheel and left the road for the wash, where lies the Secret Lair.

The wash, at this particular point, can be a bit confusing. I don’t drive it very often at the place where it intersects the road, and almost never in the dark, in a snowstorm. And I was well into it when I realized that, in the heavy snow, I really didn’t know where I was going.

This would have been embarrassing if there’d been anybody there to witness my humiliation. At one point I nearly put the Jeep right up an embankment when the wash turned right and I didn’t. But I finally encountered a remnant of a fence that I recognized. A little road crosses the wash at that point, and from there I knew where I was.

The boys aren’t used to being left in the Lair alone at night. They welcomed me home with every appearance of joy, so I guess it’s all right now.

In truth, I used to sneak into town more often than I do now. It really doesn’t often seem worth the trouble very much any more, and I’d rather stay home with the critters. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.