Actual Location: Nah, that would ruin the suspense.
Ok, assumed location: On the way to Yosemite National Park
People in the plot: 6 girls, a 7-seater SUV, 6 smart phones, 2 GPS'es and a lot of snacks
People(?) outside the plot: Coyotes, scary looking trees, a mountain, and a few "highways"
Time: Around midnight to early morning
The SUV was climbing up the mountain, on a highway with no shoulder. Folks in India, stop wondering why a road must have a shoulder. A shoulder is the side of the road where you can stop your vehicle - we don't need that in India since we have freedom to stop anywhere.
Soya felt she had achieved something. She was on a road trip with friends and we were driving around. Soya was officially a grown up. We had thoughtfully taken 2 GPS'es and all of us had smart phones. The world was at our fingertips and the satellite was our servant. We were tech savvy like that and had no care in the world. Music was being played and people were chatting away and laughing. And then it happened.
The white figure on the road with long hair looked up at us with white and red eyes. We all screamed and * ear splitting vehicle skidding screech noises *! The vehicle got out of control after hitting her and fell down the mountain. Not. Read on. (I know, sorry, read on.)
The driver missed an exit. Well, who was bothered. The GPS asked us not to sweat but to turn and go into some dark road. Some people started making worried noises but the general consensus was that darkness will lead us to light and 15 minutes later, it did. Only, Soya felt slightly worried. Why are we not going back to the "original" road, she wanted to know. But then, the GPS knows so many routes to the same destination, like the Chennai auto driver. It tailors the route according to your stupidity. If you keep missing exits, it will take your on a roundabout route just like the Chennai auto driver taking you from KK nagar to Ashok Nagar via Pondi Bazaar. (Not from Chennai? Hah!)
The vehicle started going up a mountain. We were again slightly worried after half an hour of driving along a narrow curvy path with no other vehicle in sight. The phones were useless since there was no network coverage. There was no board saying "Yosemite ungalai anbudan varaverkiradu" ("Yosemite welcomes you with love"). Soya asked "Umm guys, do we have enough fuel for the next 100+ miles?" in the general direction of the front seat occupants.
"No, we have 1/4th of the tank. Might come up to 80 more miles."
Hmm. Everybody was silent.
Soya: "Umm..shouldn't we find a gas station to get some fuel? We are short of at least 20 miles worth fuel." (Maths at school was not such a complete waste after all.)
Then the 2 hour frenzy began. The GPS took us to a deserted campsite which it claimed was a gas station. When we told it that it was scary n dark with no gas station and that it had lied to us, it refused to show us the way out and took us to dangerously narrow turns within the same campsite 5 times. Finally everybody prayed to God and took the one turn that the GPS kept missing and got out of the maze.
We then selected another gas station which had a familiar name in the GPS list. The road had now become a single lane. We kept driving though we did not know whether we had sufficient fuel to reach the fuel station. Coyotes ran by the side of the road, in the forest. I thought I heard wolves howling and bears peaking at us from behind trees. Thankfully we got down the ghostly mountain.
It was not happily ever after there. No. Instead of finding ourselves on some highway in California, we found a board telling us that we were just 42 miles away from Carson city.
I had to jog my memory and some random reference from some Hollywood movie reminded me that this was Nevada, not California. To cut a lo-hoo-ng story short, we did pull into a fuel station. We took over the gas station store's computer and discovered that we were another 4 hours away from Yosemite, and that we had been climbing up the wrong mountain. If search parties had tried looking for us the next day, they would have been looking for us in the wrong mountain's valleys.
All of us did feel precious the moment we reached the gas station. We all thought we were going too die. A part of my mind was a tad, just a tad, disappointed because getting back alive from the devil mountain meant I was going to be a year older the next week on my birthday. Then I shook of that girlie mind voice. We were lost and found. That was more important to us and to the car rental company which had loaned us the wonderful GPS.
What happened after that? Well, this is just a sneak peak into the book I am going to write on this subject. Stay tuned.
Ok, assumed location: On the way to Yosemite National Park
People in the plot: 6 girls, a 7-seater SUV, 6 smart phones, 2 GPS'es and a lot of snacks
People(?) outside the plot: Coyotes, scary looking trees, a mountain, and a few "highways"
Time: Around midnight to early morning
The SUV was climbing up the mountain, on a highway with no shoulder. Folks in India, stop wondering why a road must have a shoulder. A shoulder is the side of the road where you can stop your vehicle - we don't need that in India since we have freedom to stop anywhere.
Soya felt she had achieved something. She was on a road trip with friends and we were driving around. Soya was officially a grown up. We had thoughtfully taken 2 GPS'es and all of us had smart phones. The world was at our fingertips and the satellite was our servant. We were tech savvy like that and had no care in the world. Music was being played and people were chatting away and laughing. And then it happened.
The white figure on the road with long hair looked up at us with white and red eyes. We all screamed and * ear splitting vehicle skidding screech noises *! The vehicle got out of control after hitting her and fell down the mountain. Not. Read on. (I know, sorry, read on.)
The driver missed an exit. Well, who was bothered. The GPS asked us not to sweat but to turn and go into some dark road. Some people started making worried noises but the general consensus was that darkness will lead us to light and 15 minutes later, it did. Only, Soya felt slightly worried. Why are we not going back to the "original" road, she wanted to know. But then, the GPS knows so many routes to the same destination, like the Chennai auto driver. It tailors the route according to your stupidity. If you keep missing exits, it will take your on a roundabout route just like the Chennai auto driver taking you from KK nagar to Ashok Nagar via Pondi Bazaar. (Not from Chennai? Hah!)
The vehicle started going up a mountain. We were again slightly worried after half an hour of driving along a narrow curvy path with no other vehicle in sight. The phones were useless since there was no network coverage. There was no board saying "Yosemite ungalai anbudan varaverkiradu" ("Yosemite welcomes you with love"). Soya asked "Umm guys, do we have enough fuel for the next 100+ miles?" in the general direction of the front seat occupants.
"No, we have 1/4th of the tank. Might come up to 80 more miles."
Hmm. Everybody was silent.
Soya: "Umm..shouldn't we find a gas station to get some fuel? We are short of at least 20 miles worth fuel." (Maths at school was not such a complete waste after all.)
Then the 2 hour frenzy began. The GPS took us to a deserted campsite which it claimed was a gas station. When we told it that it was scary n dark with no gas station and that it had lied to us, it refused to show us the way out and took us to dangerously narrow turns within the same campsite 5 times. Finally everybody prayed to God and took the one turn that the GPS kept missing and got out of the maze.
We then selected another gas station which had a familiar name in the GPS list. The road had now become a single lane. We kept driving though we did not know whether we had sufficient fuel to reach the fuel station. Coyotes ran by the side of the road, in the forest. I thought I heard wolves howling and bears peaking at us from behind trees. Thankfully we got down the ghostly mountain.
It was not happily ever after there. No. Instead of finding ourselves on some highway in California, we found a board telling us that we were just 42 miles away from Carson city.
I had to jog my memory and some random reference from some Hollywood movie reminded me that this was Nevada, not California. To cut a lo-hoo-ng story short, we did pull into a fuel station. We took over the gas station store's computer and discovered that we were another 4 hours away from Yosemite, and that we had been climbing up the wrong mountain. If search parties had tried looking for us the next day, they would have been looking for us in the wrong mountain's valleys.
All of us did feel precious the moment we reached the gas station. We all thought we were going too die. A part of my mind was a tad, just a tad, disappointed because getting back alive from the devil mountain meant I was going to be a year older the next week on my birthday. Then I shook of that girlie mind voice. We were lost and found. That was more important to us and to the car rental company which had loaned us the wonderful GPS.
What happened after that? Well, this is just a sneak peak into the book I am going to write on this subject. Stay tuned.
3 comments:
You are indeed precious dear! I have not laughed so hard in sometime! Sorry about that, but ur just amazing with what you write :)
Hope ur next post is going to be as funny (and safe for you!).
He he thanks Preethi! I hope I remain safe too.
I think the movie (Carson City) you're referring to is Nicolas Cage's ConAir.
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