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Kentucky back roads equals lost
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Four days ago, my family attended the premature funeral of a beloved great uncle.
Four days ago, my dad got lost on Kentucky back roads.
Allow me to explain.
My father is an excellent navigator. Since my childhood, he has faultlessly guided us across the bland highways of Kentucky into the plains of Missouri’s Bootheel to visit my mother’s family.
But, sometimes, even the best navigation skills can be put to the test by unruly and unfamiliar dark, winding back roads.
After the usual funeral proceedings, including a potluck at the deceased’s church (can you tell yet that I barely knew my great uncle, God rest his soul?), my father’s brother had cooked up a scheme to have the entire extended family at his home in northern Tennessee, Springfield, to be exact, and the subject of an earlier article.
At any rate, my uncle knows shortcuts on the Kentucky back roads, seeing as his house is virtually on the “Tennetucky” border.
“Just hop on 41, and it will take you right to Adams. Turn left at Buzzard Creek, right on Pfizer, left on Waymun Dunn, and you’ll see it!”
The initial confusion of state roads lead my navigating father onto 41A South out of Madisonville, Kentucky.
Which led us to Hopkinsville, where we enjoyed the sight of a series of Victorian homes and a quiet square. The square, I wish here to observe, looked the carbon copy of the public square in Gallatin, Tennessee. It was quite a strange sensation for this Volunteer State Community College graduate.
“Nice town,” observed my parents.
We continued on 41A South to Clarksville, Tennessee. Oh, the confusing nature of towns one has never driven in!
Forgetting to connect highway 76 to 41 (I take the blame for this one), I, a former Adams, TN, resident, paid no attention to these signs in Clarksville, and two hours into our trip, we found our grandmother’s Kia sedan wandering the back roads of Davidson County in the dark, when we were supposed to be in Robertson County.
Finally convincing my father to pull up to a gas station to ask our location, I discovered rather than being at exit 11 off of 1-24, we were at exit 31, nine miles from our home’s exit 40.
After being stuck in an unfamiliar car for an hour longer than expected, the four of us—my parents, myself, and my youngest sister—looked at each other, shrugged, and agreed to return home.
Backs aching from the rigid leather upholstery, I smiled my own acquiescence from the backseat as we veered off the interstate in a sharp right curve. My smile grew wider as we turned onto the familiar Beverly Drive, plots of rousing my closest friends for an impromptu gathering in the early evening.
No plans developed that night, but I gained something valuable from our dark Kentucky foray: the wisdom not to navigate back roads at night in unfamiliar territory, and that Adams lies along highway 76, not 41.
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