An odyssey of errors
by Scott McNutt
Summary of Part I: Scott is stupid. He's also a guy. So he got lost driving to meet his friends at the Highland Games on Grandfather Mountain.
It was getting late. I was hours behind schedule. In desperation, I referred to the computer-generated map my girlfriend had given me. Earlier, I had dismissed the map as useless. But everything I'd done to that point had been wrong. So naturally, I was right about the map.
Why was it useless? It had no road names on it, only compass directions to follow and the number of miles to travel between those directions. Having searched all over Greeneville for the correct tire to replace a flat, I had no idea how far I'd actually come. So I did what any guy in my position would do. I started guessing.
For instance, when I ran into construction (on an interstate? In Tennessee? No!) backing traffic up, I guessed that the nearest exit was the one I was supposed to take. It wasn't, but the important thing was that, as a guy, I didn't have to ask anybody.
After taking the exit, I began following the arcane minutia of the map's directions to the mountain itself, taking this road ".7 miles east" and that one "10.2 miles south." When I arrived where the map said Grandfather Mountain was, it wasn't. I chewed the map into tiny bits and drove on.
Dusk was gathering fast when I came upon Erwin, Tennessee, where, in 1916, they had hanged a circus elephant for murder after it got loose and trampled someone. My guy resolve wavered. I mulled the idea of stopping for directions.
Wait. Had I heard a sound like a trumpet's blare? Did I feel the earth trembling under some monstrous tread? I hurried on, echoes of phantom elephant's feet thundering behind me. It was the guy thing to do.
I continued, on ever-lonelier paths. I inched along hairpin backroad curves, fearing every Deliverance-driven cliché imaginable. But I was a guy, so I pressed on.
Around 11:30 p.m., I stumbled upon Grandfather Mountain. My guyly perseverance had prevailed!
But the registration tent was closed, so I couldn't find out which camp site my friends were at. The guards were polite. They said I could search the campground for my party. So I did.
My girlfriend had told me ours would be the camp with the tiki torches. There, at the very first camp site, were tiki torches. "Hallelujah!" I thought. "I'm here!"
Wait.
There were more tiki torches at the next camp site. And more at the next. And...slowly, it dawned on me that the entire area was one big tikifest. Every single bloody camp had tiki torches. The squirrels probably had tiki torches. I hunched on into the darkness. (True fact: Gazillions of tiki torches do not, in any meaningful way, illuminate acres of campground full of trees and bushes and drunken revelers and things.) For 40 minutes, I blundered around, tripping over scrub brush, tree roots, dead branches, and, for all I know, dead bodies. I couldn't find my friends. I'd failed.
I slunk out of the campground and back down the mountain to the little resort town of Banner Elk. There was no room at its inn. All nearby inns were full. I half-expected the desk clerk to tell me I'd have to sleep in the manger. But all she said was that Elizabethton, an hour's drive north, might have some rooms.
Another hour. Then more driving next morning.
I'd been traveling for 11 hours. An embarrassing flat tire incident, a lengthy quest for an appropriate replacement tire, the elephant ghosts of Erwin, the scrambling along twisty, tiny backroads, the visions of Deliverance dancing in my head (and the image of Ned Beatty in a tutu, pirouetting and squealing like a pig, is truly disturbing)—all had taken a toll.
I was tired.
I wanted this day behind me. I wanted peaceful, unstressed sleep. I wanted Ned Beatty out of my head. Screw guyliness. I went home.
But I hear the Highland Games are a lot of fun. So maybe I'll go next year. As far as I know, neither elephant ghosts nor Ned Beatty have ever been sighted there.
August 8, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 32
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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