Blog Amateur Apr 2026

Dad turned off the engine. He stared at the canyon for a long, long time. Then he looked at me.

— Margot

I learned something out there, I think. Not about maps, or gas, or getting lost. I learned that my father, the great and terrible planner, was just as scared of the unknown as I was. The only difference is, he hid it behind laminated paper.

Finally, the road dead-ended at a view that wasn’t on any map. blog amateur

We stayed for forty minutes. We didn’t take a single picture. Then Dad turned the car around, the map still useless in the back seat, and we drove home the long way.

That last part was bratty. I admit it.

“It’s a dirt road,” Dad argued. “We have a sedan.” Dad turned off the engine

Everyone looked at me. I never had opinions on logistics. I only had opinions on playlists and whether my brother was touching me.

P.S. Dad finally bought a GPS. He keeps it in the glove compartment. Next to the Thomas Guide.

For the first six days, everything went exactly to script. We saw the Petrified Forest (Dad took 200 photos of rocks). We ate at a diner where the waitress called us “hon.” We sang “Sweet Caroline” so many times that Sam threatened to jump out of the moving vehicle. — Margot I learned something out there, I think

“We go back,” Dad said. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

I didn’t have a compass. I didn’t have a GPS signal. All I had was a sunburn and a stupid sense of direction. But I pointed left, and he turned.

And I learned that sometimes, the only way to find the thing you weren’t looking for is to run out of instructions.

But Dad looked at the map. Then at the road. Then at the gas gauge. For the first time in his entire life, he said something I didn’t expect.