White Water Rafting pt 1

It has been my experience that unless you are a professional outdoorsman, outdoor activities have a tendency to go awry.
My mother decided a white water rafting trip would be a good idea. Why wouldn't it be? What could go wrong, less an accidental drowning. She made reservations and picked up Sterling and I one Saturday. Answers to questions were given without being asked. We had to be there at noon. That gave us more than enough time to get there. Mapquest had been accessed and we had great directions. We would have a picnic midway through the trip and would have dinner after leaving the river. The mapquest directions were given to me and we were off.
We were headed to Maupin in Central Oregon. "Get on highway 84 and head East. Get off 84 at Gresham, head South until we run into Burnside then continue East. Take a right an Mt Hood and look for exit 49." Sounds simple enough my mother and I said. We followed these directions to the Mountain flawlessly. The directions said that exit 49 would be ten miles south of the Mountain. "Perfect."
Exit 49 came and went. It was a dirt road and we thought that could not be it. We drove a few more miles, finding nothing else, turned around and headed back to exit 49. These were Mapquest directions we were following! What could go wrong?
The road at exit 49 was not well travelled. Narrow and shouldered by tall grass and trees. Navagating this road was difficult as it was filled with potholes, perfect for a big 4x4 pickup. The further we travelled down exit 49 the more narrow the road became. Five miles in, the landscape began to fill with more trees and now my son had to pee. We had kept the mood light until this point. This is when all three of us became became professional outdoor navagators...in my mothers Honda Civic.
With the peeing done we loaded back into the Civic and looked for the road we had obviously missed. Time was a factor now. We were almost running late. Looking for the fork we had obviously taken the wrong turn at we headed back.
We had to pull over again as a huge construction truck had entered exit 49 and we had to let him by. We followed him to the construction site and asked directions as we must have been fools and taken the wrong fork. "We're looking for the so and so rafting company in Maupin as we have an twelve o'clock reservation." The construction workers looked at us as we were crazed and had no idea of what we were looking for. They knew where Maupin was but couldn't tell us how to get there from exit 49.
Three different voices expressing three different opinions at this point in time was maddening. Let's give up. No way can we make it there in time, was the final consensus. My mother, attempting to lighten us up offered to buy lunch...if we found civilization again.
Back on the dirt road with potholes, no shoulder, my son voraciously tossing out opinions about where the correct road was and my lack of coffee had pissed me off to no end. This is where I shut down. Better to sit quietly than yell at the two of them until my voice gave out. I could feel my pulse in that big vein in my neck and the little hairs on the back of my neck were standing straight up, never a good sign.
Defeated, we tucked tail between legs and headed back. About a mile from the "paved" road I noticed something moving toward us. Too far away to see what it was but it wasn't using the road we were on. "Stop the car!" Passing directly in front us was a herd of wild horses. You see these in some western movies but it is the 21st century. A fucking herd of wild horses. We had gotten ourselves so lost a herd of wild horses was passing in front of us.
Time to go home.