See that picture up there? Of my 1989 Ford F-150 known as The Marshal? Well, earlier today, that picture saved my ass, or at least saved my ass, and my kid’s ass, from an experience that could have been a massive pain in those aforementioned asses. I should probably explain.
So, Otto and I have been enjoying taking my extremely shitty canoe, the HMS Terror, on little excursions to try and discover new species of amphibious rabbits, or something. I also recently got a little trolling motor for it so we can now venture further and faster. So, that’s what we decided to do late-ish this afternoon, and to add to the excitement we went to a new location, this time part of the Eno river.
Normally we go to a lake; the Eno was a somewhat different experience, a bit more mysterious and engaging, with more wildlife (including herons that Otto repeatedly called “heroins” much to my delight) and, of course, charmingly pudgy frogs:
We put him back, by the way, he’s fine. He just looks grumpy.
Anyway, we were enjoying exploring around, everything was lush and verdant and overgrown, feeling a bit Apocalypse Now-ish, and eventually we felt like we had enough, so we decided to turn back.
And that’s where the problem began. The Eno is a bit labyrinthine, and meanders and weaves like a drunk on a hoverboard. Plus, it all looks pretty much the same? For example, here’s Otto and I at one point:
…and here’s Otto’s back at another point a good ways away:
What I’m saying is I got kinda lost. And we wanted to get back. And it was after 6 pm, and I really didn’t want to be out there trying to find my way back in the dark. Also, I was too stupid to drop a pin or something when I parked, so when I looked at the map on my phone, I wasn’t even really sure where to go. It wasn’t great.
Then I remembered that picture up there. Pictures all get stamped with location information! I checked the location info of the picture, confirmed I just puttered a good way in precisely the wrong direction, corrected course, and headed back.
Even with the little motor at its maximum speed of Warp 5 (the controls go from 1-5, I assume the word “warp” is what you say there. Also, that’s about 3-4 mph) it took us a good while to get back – I guess we’d covered several miles – and by the time we returned the car battery that powered the motor still read 19%! Not too bad!
Anyway, the moral here is that don’t feel embarrassed to take random pictures of you car, just because you feel like it. They may save your ass one day.