Hindsight is 20-20

My Grandparents live in Texas and drove to Minnesota to see family and friends over the course of the next few weeks. Their first stop in MN was to see Mike and I (ok, more like Madison and Cameron) in the med-city.

They arrived at our home before we got home from work and daycare. Their GPS led them right to our door. When all of us arrived home - we decided to head out for supper at a Chinese restaurant in town. Since our car is full of car seats, we had to take two cars to the restaurant. In hindsight – it would have made a lot of sense for Grandma to ride with me and for Mike to ride with Grandpa. Yea, hindsight really is 20-20!!!

We chose to go to Hunan and that was the extent of our conversation about where we were going. All of us jumped in the cars and headed out. As we approached the downtown area, Mike saw Grandpa enter Hwy 52 and head south through the review mirror. We were long past the ramp to Hwy 52 and couldn’t turn back!

I remembered seeing their GPS and their cell phone lying on the floor in my house. I was fairly certain they didn’t have either one with them. I tried in vain to call the cell phone anyway – hoping they grabbed it without my knowledge.

No answer.

We headed to the restaurant in hopes that they would find the restaurant. Mind you, there are at least 3 Chinese restaurants in the med-city with the word “Hunan” in its name. I was banking on them finding the right one!

Not there either.

The next plan was to just head home, in hopes that they would find their way back to the house.

I was absolutely panicked. What kind of Grand Daughter invites her late-seventy-something grandparents to an unfamiliar and fairly large city – and then loses them??????

Surely I was going to hell.

I am usually a pretty positive and level headed person – but I was not feeling positive or level-headed at all. They didn’t have a cell phone with them. They didn’t have their GPS with our address programmed in it. They probably didn’t have my cell phone number with them.

In my mind, they were lost forever.

I called my Mom and admitted that I lost my Grandparents – praying she wouldn’t tell my Dad.

As we were headed home, I was keeping my eyes peeled, in hopes that I would see a Toyota Camry with Texas plates.

No luck.

God, clearly, was not on my side and I was wondering what I did to anger him!

All of a sudden, my cell phone rang with an unfamiliar, but local number. It was Grandma! Somehow they had ended up in the northwest part of town at a strip mall. It turns out they followed another identical silver Malibu, thinking it was us. They followed it right to an apartement building before they realized they were not following the right car. Luckily, they found a golf shop (surprise, surprise) and thankfully Grandma had her address book in her purse with my cell phone number written in it. The nice owner let them use the phone to call me.

PRAISE JESUS!

I told her to stay put and that we would come get them.

Of course, when we got there, it still did not occur to us to have someone familiar with the area ride with them. (Will we ever learn???)

After navigating through endless construction projects throughout the med-city, we managed to get to Hunan and enjoyed a nice meal. It was not without Grandpa running a few red (they were pink) lights to avoid losing us. (I’m sure he’ll stop twice next time.)

It was wonderful to visit with them and spend an evening catching up. I can’t wait to see them again…and next time we will make sure they carry their cell phone, have the GPS, and have someone ride with them that is familiar with where we are going!

LESSON LEARNED.