The unmarked dirt road was not a road at all, but rather a couple of ruts at the edge of a grassy field. We had already passed it twice, admiring the cute gray cat lounging like a small panther in the tall grass. And we had already taken the only other turn off this short stretch of Wheater Road: a narrow way between cornfields that had dead-ended by an abandoned shanty at the edge of the woods.
"The written description says it's here," I insisted as we idled on the narrow shoulder. "It's unmarked, at the end of a quarter-mile dirt road on the east side of Wheater between Bagdad and Rt 62." I opened the map app on my phone. Tapping the satellite image, I could see three light green clearings beyond the woods at the edge of the field where the cat was. "We're going in!" I said and put the car in gear. A hundred yards away I turned onto the grassy lane and drove to the back of the meadow. Over a small rise we saw a chained-off driveway that had been invisible from the main road.
I pulled up to it and hopped out of the car. "I'm going to check it out!" I said.
"I'm going with you!" Heidi replied, and we left the a/c running for her parents and hopped over the chain.
The path curved around to the left and down a steep hill. I knew why they had closed it off; a car could easily get stuck going up or down this way. We flushed a flock of finches to the right and a woodchuck lumbered across the road ahead of us; clearly this trail was not well traveled by humans. It had been mown sometime this summer, but the grass was up to our knees in some places. Rounding the curve ahead of us, I stopped and pointed. "There it is!"
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