The Wilds of Dunloggin

It only takes one variable to change your day.

I needed to pick up a few things that my own Walgreens did not have in stock so I put in an order at the one on Route 40 in Catonsville. I entered the destination into my GPS and headed out.

I soon found myself lost, more or less, in what I would call The Wilds of Dunloggin.

It is not a terrifying thing to be aimlessly drifting through Dunloggin but it was unexpected. A little checking revealed that my GPS was inexplicably set to “avoid highways.” So I was not lost. I was taking the scenic route.

Since I spend so much time inside the Columbia Bubble it’s honestly educational for me to visit neighborhoods that deviate from my expected norms. I took in the differences in architectural style, how the lots were laid out, and I wondered what it was like to live on these streets when they were new.

I felt like I had pretty much gotten the hang of where I was going when a vision off to my right startled me. It looked rather like a children’s book my daughter adored when she was very young.

The Visit, Joan Esley, illustrated by Eloise Wilkin

This house looked absolutely nothing like the other houses. In fact, if houses could be ghosts, this was probably…a ghost?

I didn’t stop or turn around or go back to gawk. I wasn’t entirely sure I had actually seen it. What struck me was that it was completely hemmed in by newer and far less interesting structures. How on earth did that happen?

The end of my story is far less dramatic. I found my way to the Walgreen’s successfully, reset my GPS, and drove home “the normal way.”

It was nowhere near as exciting.

I’ve done a bit of digging around on the internet this morning and it seems that I might have stumbled upon MacAlpine House? Does that name ring a bell to you?

I used to wonder why my parents liked to go for a drive on a Sunday afternoon. As a child I was far more interested in activity and fun destinations. The idea that just driving could be entertaining unto itself made no sense to me.

Yesterday all it took was a careless setting on my GPS and I found myself on the road less traveled. Funny, that. I think I inadvertently entered my parents’ dimension simply by accident.

Do you have any favorite Howard County drives you’d recommend? Let me know.

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