Fort Myer

Drove out to VA looking for a car. We found Mitsubishi, but it was their corporate headquarters, not their showroom. There are limits to Google Maps, mostly mine.

So we headed south east, and after several wrong turns were in sight of the highway. Which is when I missed yet another turn and mistook a guard-post for a toll-booth. The automatic rifles and military uniforms under the hi-vis jackets stopped the search for loose change. America is well armed but toll-booth attendants are probably excused the obligatory six shooters worn by everyone else in authority. We could expect a surge in suicides if nothing else.

I expected aggressive suspicion followed by a torturous many pointed turn in front of the monster truck I'd just cut up. So we scrambled around for my State Dept ID in my satchel - or manbag, an item I suspect might have threatened their don't ask, don't tell recruitment policy - in the hope that it'd buy us a little time.

But the guards of Fort Myer, for it was America's newest garrison command, turned out to be a very welcoming, and I suspect used to idiots missing an entire highway and turning up at their gates looking a bit sheepish. So they guided us round a loop and back towards the highway, a young hispanic private in Oakleys giving us directions down to Springfield. Though this was only after we had driven through the vehicle check and popped the trunk.