Week 11 Theme--when words mean something beyond themselves

 An A frame by the lake at the end of Honeysuckle Ave, is where our trip ended. The street starting at the city center meandered its way to the lake. Reaching the shore it became narrower, ending with only a handful of houses and many warning signs alarming those who drive at night – beware, lake ahead.

I never lived in an A frame before. From the steep metal roof that in the spring became an instrument for the breaking ice to harmonize a symphony of cracking, and splitting ending with loud thuds, to the basement with the huge wood stove and hardly any windows. There was nothing familiar about it.

Few pieces of second hand furniture in the spacious living room occupying the middle floor, couple beds left by the land lady, realizing all we had were our suitcases (one lost on the way) and within few days we were settled in, feeling for no apparent reason very welcomed.

Across the house a narrow trail weaved touching the shore and as I walked there in the mornings, or late afternoons, herds of ducks and geese kept me company expecting handouts and breaking the quiet with their loud quacking. With the lake at our doorstep and the dark green wall of the Rocky Mountain on the opposite shore, watching over us, we were ready.

It appeared to be a logical set of events that landed us in this small town in North Idaho, and yet I  was left with a lingering feeling that destiny had a hand in directing our blind zigzagging across the state, from coast to coast.

Over time the trips’ exact details started to coalesce in my mind  (and then we decided to drive west …and then we turned south) but I can still recall the long months while still in our hometown, in Israel,  getting ready to leave, and driving west crossing the vast country with no clear vision of what is waiting for us.

Gradually the weeks of exhilaration, deriving from a sense of total freedom, turned into exhaustion. With no apparent goal it was difficult, if not impossible, to tell whether we were making progress or stepping on our own footsteps.

One day in mid October we encountered a stranger, in an abandon gas station in North Dakota. He warned us of a snow storm heading our way, and in spite of our doubts, looking at the blue skies with no cloud in sight; we changed our course and headed south. The change of route brought us blurry eyed, after the long climb, to the border between Idaho and Montana, The Fourth-of-July Pass. Standing there looking over the landscape we knew, with unexplained certainty, that this part of our journey had come to its end.

Ten days later we walked into the house by the lake and the landlady, a devout Mormon (first one I ever met) hearing that we are from Israel, was deeply moved and claimed we were sent by no less than god himself for an unknown, as yet, mission. And so an A frame by the lake at the end of Honeysuckle Ave, is where our trip finally ended.

Weird we thought few weeks later, when we realized that the reason everyone we met was slightly apologetic, was because the ‘Promised Land’ He led us to, driving sightless across the plains, was directly across the street from the area Nazi headquarters.

They say; truth is stranger than fiction and this is a true story.