Directions, Please

This post was prompted by an exercise we did in my technical writing class. (And so I concede -the class isn't entirely worthless) We discussed the last time we got or gave directions.

While in Boise, me, Bryce, and his brother, Brenden decided to go caving. There's a little-known cave called "Smith's crack" (I know, it's a funny name). It's a lava tube cave, and we were all game for hiking it. We searched on the web for directions, but had no luck. We decided to rely on the combined memories of Bryce and Brenden (who had both been there a total of once each) to find our way.

Well, we started out. We were in Bryce's Honda Accord, blazing along dirt roads in the rolling Idaho hills. I half expected to come across Uncle Rico's van parked out there or Pedro's cousins with the sweet ride. The ride itself was nice; it was a sunny day, we had music to listen to, and between us all, there was never a lull in the conversation. After trying a few possible trails and back-tracking, we finally decided to ask someone.

(Here's the part worth sharing)

We found a middle-aged outdoorsman who had parked his dirt-bike along a dirt bank and was sighting in a rifle. We pulled up in our Honda and asked,

"Hey, do you know where Smith's Crack is?"

Bryce could sense the confusion, so he explained: "It's a lava tube cave people can hike, it's somewhere near here. Have you heard of it?"

Then came the response, "No, haven't heard of it, but there's lots to explore out here. So, I'd have no idea where that is."

"Oh. Okay."

"But, you know, you could ask someone else. They might know. I mean, I would think it would probably be farther out that way towards the mountains. I mean, if it were anywhere, that's where it would be."

(I had to hide my laughter at his last sentence. Then came this next part, and I'm still laughing at it now.)

He then proceeded to give us directions to wherever he was thinking might lead us close to our destination (which he'd never heard of). "If you get back out on the main dirt road and follow it down, you'll get back to the paved road and you can take that about five miles towards the highway, then you'll see another dirt road off to the left. Take that road. It's probably down that way."

Now, I've dealt with some interesting answers, but that was about the most long-winded and eloquent "Can't you see I'm busy? Get out of my hair" I've ever heard.
I left too dumb-founded to even react. It took a few minutes to take in his answer.

We didn't follow his directions. In fact, we went the opposite direction. We didn't find "Smith's crack", but we found a gorge with some beautiful basalt cliffs, and it was full of wildlife and photo opportunities. I had a run-in with a live owl, which I thought was dead (it gave me quite a scare). I'm thinking of an owl pun here, but I won't do it. (You're welcome). We saw some deer, a snake, several owls, some baby owls, some rabbits, and a bald eagle, not to mention a lot of great rocks. (deer in the photo below)

Despite our lack of direction, our afternoon's adventure turned out to be really enjoyable. And I got a story out of it.