The GGA Project -- Day #294 "Lots of Ways Down a Mountain"

So this is a minor thing, but I swear it blew my mind.


Today my Mom and I were setting out to check out a just-opened Fresh and Easy store by the Target closest to my house.  That makes two of my favorite shopping locales together in one place; they are even connected as part of the same large building.  Dangerous.


Anyway, my Dad was with us because we had to drop him off to pick up his Jeep, which was being repaired.  Letting my Mom (who was driving) know the best way to get there, he told her to take a left by the high school near our house.


I'd only heard him say "turn by the school," so I'd assumed he was talking about at middle school a little ways down the road, and since I wasn't watching the road I missed the turn altogether and was shocked when I looked up only 20 seconds later expecting to see a familiar street and instead saw the large gravestones of a very old cemetery I didn't even know existed.


Today's New Activity: Discovering Fletcher Lane


I'm usually pretty adventurous when it comes to exploring roads of all kinds, most especially the ones near where I live.  But as I mentioned last week, I only recently begun to think of Hayward as my home, so I'd yet to put any energy into finding short cuts or long cuts or interesting cuts to anywhere nearby.  I didn't even know turning left by the high school led to anywhere.  I thought it was a short residential street that ended as soon as it began.


Nope.  It winds past that cemetery, past five or six nice-looking apartment complexes, down to Mission Blvd, and straight into the side street that leads to the freeway.  I felt like I'd just been let in on a major secret, even if the payoff was a minor one.


I love knowing areas well.  I love being able to tell people the quickest or most efficient (German in me speaking there) way to get from A to B.  And though I'd like to have had a more interesting new activity to write about today, my day off no less, I love that I know my hometown just a little bit better for having stayed local :)