Yesterday was a great adventure. It was a coworker’s birthday. She is here short term and still misses home sometimes so we wanted to make sure her birthday was incredible.
We decided to drive out to a national forest. (Didn’t do the mountain thing I mentioned.) We didn’t exactly know where the place was. We just started out in the direction we had been told to go. We had been told it was just before a certain road, but when we didn’t see it there we kept going. Eventually we stopped to ask for help.
After about six times of asking for help we ended up on the right road. The directions never completely made sense, until we found the right place. Then what they had said fit together. The crazy thing is that if they didn’t know where we were trying to go, they would never have said, “I don’t know.” They would have made up something. I still believe some of them may have done that. They gave something so broad it couldn’t have been wrong. We were going to test this if we stopped once more. I was going to ask the way to Super Wal-Mart, just to see if we could get a response from them. We didn’t have to stop again so we never asked.
Come to find out the park was much farther out of town than we expected. We drove for quite a while down some pretty rough roads before finally arriving. It was so wonderful though. The countryside is much different than the city here. And you only have to get 20 minutes or so outside the city to see it. The scenery is beautiful. The people are beautiful and funny. They don’t see many cars down the dirt roads we were on. While we were still a ways off they would hear the engine. The children would come running to the road to ask for gifts.
Since they don’t have cars and never will, the road is a walkway to them. They walk down the middle caring water jugs or sticks. They heard their sheep, goats, cows, and/or donkeys right down the middle of the road. It is crazy.
Once we finally arrived the park was so peaceful. We found what was called a waterfall (disappointing) and took pictures and sat for a while. It was so relaxing, so refreshing. We had a great morning and early afternoon of just chilling far from the horns, and smog, and cell phone service.
I love these occasional days away.
We finished off her birthday with dinner at her favorite restaurant. It is Arabic. Everyone sits on the floor and gets food from communal plates. We had great fish and shish kabobs. She was also surprised with flowers and a cake. I think we were at least somewhat successful at making it a great day for her.
Okay lunchtime!
|