Finally, half a day after Mom picked up the phone to call for help, we were free to resume our trip. Mom's thought bubble quieted as the car-house settled into freeway pace.
Mom's eyes flicked back and forth between the road and the Witch. “We don’t have time to run all the way to the dam and back like I planned, but we can still do a shorter run,” she narrated.
"Let's skip the and back part so we can still see everything," I suggested.
"We've got to get back to the van somehow. If we park halfway then we can still see the second half, where all the good scenery is." She poked at the Witch for confirmation, then she poked more urgently. "But how the hell do we get there?"
"By getting out of the car-house, of course," I said helpfully.
"Yeah, but where? It's a bike trail, so there must be dozens of entrances..."
She must have looked at the Witch for a moment too long, because when she looked up at the road, she sat up straight and yanked on the driving wheel. I bounced between the copilot's seat and driving chair like a pinball.
"...but how do I tell the GPS where to go if I don't know where any of them are?" Mom continued as if nothing had happened.
I shook my rumpled ears back into place. "By asking for directions, of course."
"Yeah, but directions to where? A bike trail is a line, and the GPS can only search for points," she said, like that explained anything.
"The map says the trail is down there." Mom craned her neck at a strange angle to better see what was hidden between the roadside cliff and the distant river. "But how the heck do we get down there?"
The road and river followed the same wavy line about half a mile apart. As if choreographed, the river turned away and the road followed for a few beats, then it was the road's turn to lead the river back in the other direction. They danced to and fro, never getting any closer together.