Somewhere around 1960, my uncle built a small, summer cottage on the shore of a lake in New Hampshire. At the time, he was unmarried and only used the camp on weekends. However, he was very generous and we (me, my sister, and my mom) basically spent our summer school vacation there.

One of our weekly treats was dinner at a local drive-in diner. The road to get there circled the lake. It was quite rural back then and there were few houses. There were also a number of dirt roads that turned off our route and disappear into the woods.

One night on our way to the diner mom turned our 1960 VW beetle off onto one of these dirt roads. She announces that she’s “pretty sure” she knows where the road comes out. My sister and I look at each other and shrug. As we got further in, the dirt road narrowed and the canopy of trees blocked a lot of the daylight.

On she drove the little car for what seemed like hours. My sister and I were starting to get nervous when an opening appeared and we came to a paved road. Mom looked around a couple times and turned left. She then says triumphantly “ Yup! I thought this was where that road went!”. We were just a little way from the drive-in.

Mom passed away 5 years ago at age 91. I inherited her sense of direction and passion for following off the beaten path roads. Aminus3 Photography prompt :discover