Weekend Detour

A man drives along a highway one weekend day, glad for the chance to take this route on a non-work day, glad there is no traffic. An audio book plays on the CD deck, and he and his wife are enjoying the story, if not the narrator's voice. They are quiet because they are listening and because they are relaxed and enjoying the drive. He's startled when his wife breaks the silence by remarking, "Dogs!"

"What?" He's not sure he heard her right.

"Dogs!" she insists. "Get off the highway."

"Are you serious?" But she's looking at him in a way that means she is, and he indulges her, merging right across the lanes of highway, taking the exit. He looks at her as if to say, "Now where?" She gives a small little shrug, an apologetic grin, and gestures vaguely with her arm.

It's the wrong way; the road veers over the highway, not down the frontage road. They're on a road heading perpendicularly away from the highway and they meet several "no U turn" intersections. "I'm trying to get back to the 101," he says, but they both know figuring out how to get to the frontage road is more baffling than they anticipated.

Eventually they get going back toward the highway on the perpendicular road. "We should just get on the highway and keep going," she's cranky, but he says, "Oh, here!" They make a few guesses and end up on the frontage road. She sits up and cranes her neck, keeping her eyes out.

"Not dogs!" she laughs at herself. "Goats!" And they are. A little herd, walking in a single file line through the wetland marsh. "What can I say? We were traveling freeway speed and I don't have my glasses!" offered as explanation for the mis-recognition, and because he's looking at her with an expression that clearly means are-you-kidding-me-you-thought-these-are-dogs.

She's still laughing when she tells him to pull over, grabs her camera and starts to get out of the car. He glances over at her inappropriate shoes--he is sometimes the practical one--but she's down the trail before he can decide what to say.

He can see her from the car until she leaves the trail and enters tall scrubby brush, then she's visible again crossing a narrow slough on a thin gangway, pausing to snap photos.


On the other side, she's where the goats are. They look startled to see her, warily looking up but still grazing.

By the time she returns and hops back in the car, she's missed a chapter of the audio book. She begins flipping through the images on her camera, telling him about the goat at the salt lick who was the first to get upset at her presence and trot off in annoyance.


The rest followed right away, but a young one got distracted then had to run to catch up, protesting noisily about being left behind.


She had been curious about the fence surrounding their area, and admits she touched it, describing a tiny prickle of electricity in her fingertips that shot up to her elbow. Then she leans over, and kisses his cheeks. "We can go now."