Birthday celebrations lead us to our friends’ cabin located on the Brule River, WI. We were given directions but notified the cabin “doesn’t really” have an address “but that we should follow the directions and it should get you close enough”.
Driving in the middle of Wisconsin (which felt like the middle of nowhere) with no cell phone service and in the dark is spooky. Then to add to the situation our gaslight comes on; GREAT. Remembering that adventure starts when everything goes wrong, I decided to take a few deep breaths and go with the flow. Soon after we spotted taillights of a car pulled over ahead. Knowing we were probably the only people out on these country dirt roads we figured it had to be a friends’ car (since there was a crew of us making our way out). Sure enough, it was and they had been driving around for 45 minutes looking. While discussing options we noticed a few other cars driving aimlessly around. Turns out we knew all of the vehicles—we were all lost!
Luckily for us, a friendly local named Bob had been out grouse hunting and noticed all the traffic and came over to check it out. Bob was extremely helpful and knew the territory well. Bob was full of stories with a heavy southern accent, and a shotgun in the front seat. He thought the odds of our little adventure mobile making the drive through the woods were slim, but despite the odds and with some crafty driving, our vehicle, Earl (1985 Toyota Tercel Wagon) made it. We finally found the cabin and were able to set up camp just in time to enjoy a night of birthday celebrations.