The Plaid Pladd

This will only be my second autumn in North Carolina, arguably my second autumn EVER since neither Florida nor Houston really have these crazy things like colored leaves or cold weather. Also, both are sort of short on corn, which North Carolina seems to have in abundance, at least around here. I remember driving to my apartment the first time, my GPS had my exit the interstate just over the Carolina border and travel a series of winding country highways the back way into Carrboro. I remember looking down at the Garmin screen proclaiming that I would arrive at my new home in just a few minutes, and then looking out the window at the corn fields and cows. “WHERE am I moving to?” I thought, little knowing that I was moving to the greatest place ever, and I’m not just talking about Weiner Dog Day.

All summer when driving to and from work I’ve seen signs for corn mazes along the side of the road that are “Coming Soon!” Saturday was the first day for most of them, and I pretty much just put jeans on over my pajamas and dragged Steven out of the house in excitement.

I’ve been to one corn maze before, in Albuquerque with THE 434 plus Josh Langsfeld. This mostly involved wandering around in the mostly dead corn trying to decide what parts were path and what parts were corn that had just fallen down:

October 2007: A corn maze that's not trying very hard

This corn maze was totally different! At the beginning, they gave us a piece of paper with various multiple choice questions on it. When we got to certain forks in the path marked with numbered posts, we would answer the question and go left or right depending on our answer. We chose American History (the other categories were Scripture, 4-H, and Corn), and my job as a 5th grade tutor totally came through for us on this one. It was always a small triumph any time we made it to the next signpost with the knowledge that at least with this decision we’d probably be making the right choice. It also helped to keep us from accidentally wandering too far back when retracing our steps. It still took us about an hour to make it out, but it probably would have been at least twice that otherwise.

September 2010: Notice how the corn behind me is still alive

Also how my sunglasses have only improved in awesomeness over time. That orange tie-dye thing is a flag they gave us to wave if we got too lost so that they could come and get us. There was a guy sitting on a platform watching us the entire time, probably laughing at us for constantly taking the wrong turn and getting super lost. Here is my super lost face:

Not even my cursory knowledge of Revolutionary War trivia could save us

Luckily, we finally made it out alive:

Steven, claiming this maze in the name of Tie Dye

The next corn maze I complete will definitely be at night, though. Not just for the scariness, but to keep my shoulders from getting super sunburned.