Yeah, I’m a bit infamous for losing my way, especially when trying to find my way to a place for the first time without knowing what any of the landmarks look like. Street names and numbers are excellent pieces of information on paper, but if I can’t connect those numbers and names to what a physical place looks like, I might just drive up and down the street a few times trying to find the next turnoff.
Before Google Street View existed, there were several epic-fail jaunts I found myself on…let me tell you of them.
Whoops, I Was Supposed to Go West
One Saturday evening a couple of years ago, my boyfriend and I were leaving from the comics and collectibles shop about 40 miles from home, in Gastonia, NC. We went and got something to eat in the downtown area, and from there, I reckoned that we should turn left out of the parking lot onto Franklin Boulevard to get back home.
…But about 45 minutes after turning left, we were driving on into the darkness, and none of the street signs looked familiar. I’d come this way many times, but never this late at night. In desperation, I finally called Dad (our resident navigator); the nearest street sign told me that I was on Highway 74 heading east from Gastonia.
“East?!” Dad spluttered over the phone when I told him this. “Good Lord, honey, you’re halfway to Belmont by now!” Belmont, as you might have gathered by now, is in the total opposite direction of home. We had spent 45 minutes going the wrong dang way, and I, in my bullheaded sense that I knew where I was going, had kept us going past all the unfamiliar scenery as darkness fell.
We easily got turned around and started going west, quickly reaching the outskirts of Gastonia again, and soon we were back in familiar territory. (My boyfriend got to do a well-deserved “I told you so” after this–he had been the one to sound the first warning that something wasn’t right about our route home. I know to listen to him now, as well as to listen to my own doubts and intuitions!)
Can You Tell Me How to Get–How to Get to This Address?
While I was still in college in Greensboro, NC, I had made Internet contact with a really nice guy who went to Furman University down in South Carolina, and we wanted to start dating. Since my home is a hop, skip, and jump from the SC state line, it seemed a simple thing to schedule our first date for a time when I would be home from college for the weekend.
So, on a Friday afternoon, after I had already made the 2 1/2-hour drive back from college to home, I was heading down I-85 South to Greenville, SC, confident that I had correct directions and knew all the twists and turns I needed to take to get to the Furman campus. I took all the exits off the main highways that I needed to, got into the correct lanes, and all of that…except that the college campus was nowhere to be found.
A frantic 1 1/2-hour search for Furman University ensued, as I drove tensely through the thickest portions of inner Greenville, tears working their way out of my eyes as minutes passed with no familiar street names. Somewhere–I wasn’t sure where–I had made a terrible mistake, even though I knew I had taken all the roads I was supposed to according to the directions I’d gotten from Mapquest. Instead of ending up at the college campus, I was lost in suburbia.
I pulled a couple of epic U-turns in this search, pulling onto a deserted four-lane residential road long enough to whoop around in the middle of the street, and even turning around in a business parking lot without even pausing to make it a 3-point turn. (I love my little car’s turning radius. <3) At this point, I had been lost for over an hour, and I was increasingly frightened--even Daddy couldn't tell me where I was, and I was a single girl alone in a strange city. Not to mention that my cell phone signal kept going in and out, making me miss worried calls from my would-be date, who was getting quite concerned by this time.
At some point, I finally pulled over into a parking lot in front of a rather dilapidated strip mall, and I went into a barber shop, which happened to be the only business still open at this time of night. After a moment's hesitation, I walked in, realizing how vulnerable I was as I did so--I was a lone female in what didn't look like the best part of town, with darkness falling. Fear bit at me as I opened the door...would I find any help from the five older gentlemen seated inside?
But it seemed God had directed me to just the right barbershop. The fatherly owner of the shop, after hearing my tearful explanation of the problem (along the lines of "Can somebody tell me where Furman University is?!"), was able to tell me that the road I was looking for had actually changed names halfway through Greenville, and it was now known as Poinsett Highway out this far. And, as he put it, "Darlin', you ain't too far off from Furman now--you only lack 'bout a mile!" The others agreed, and sought to put my mind at ease.
I probably looked a mess, with mascara running down my face, my nose all red from crying, and my eyes all puffed out, but they were sympathetic, and I was grateful for it. They pointed me to continue down the road I had been on, and I saw as I left the building that indeed the road name was Poinsett Highway. (Never been so relieved to see a street sign in my life. LOL)
Within a few minutes after getting back in my car and onto the road, I did indeed find the exit that led into Furman University. (My date was standing outside the dorm, and looked so relieved to see me pull up that I think he about fell over. And our date went well, even if it did start two hours later than anticipated. xD)
Random Left Turn of Fail
My boyfriend and I had taken a trip up to Lake Lure, NC, to have a picnic out in the beautiful countryside surrounding the lake. It had been a favorite family destination as a child, and I wanted to share that with my awesome wub. Though the day was a little grayer and chillier than we expected, we still had good food and good conversation outside under the shade of one of the picnic shelters nearby.
When it came time to head back toward home, I threaded my way back through the route around the lake, and made a left at the intersection we had come into the area on, starting our trip back home. Or so I thought.
About 10 minutes later, we started seeing signs for Asheville, NC, as well as Bat Cave, NC (a real town, I promise!). “Uh-oh,” I said, passing the third of such signs. “I think we might be going the wrong way…”
“Why?” my boyfriend asked.
“‘Cause, um…we’re headed toward Asheville instead of away from it,” I said, sheepishly. “Wish I’d realized this about 5 minutes ago…”
By this time, though, my boyfriend was well aware that I could find a way out of the mess as easily as I found my way into it, and he shrugged. “Well, we’ll just find a place to turn around, and we’ll be good to go–you haven’t made any other turns, so we’ll probably just have to go back to that one intersection we remembered from before,” he said.
But finding a place to turn around on curving mountain roads proved much more difficult. I kept looking for gas stations or parking lots or ANYTHING that I could just whoop into and whoop back around…but the mountainside sloped sharply down away on our left side, and only houses were on the right. Asheville crept closer the farther we looked, and we were gathering quite a crowd of drivers behind us since we were going slowly along the curves.
Finally, we sighted, on the side of the road, a blue-graveled parking lot of sorts, barely even wide enough for one car to park perpendicular to the old building it lay in front of. I darted into it, sighing with relief–and then saw the sheer impossibility of using it to turn around. There was no room to back up and change direction; if I tried to do a 3-point turn, I’d take out a wall of the old building to our right. And yet, the road was narrow. If I tried to do a U-turn, I could end up hitting the guard rail. Not to mention that there was traffic flying from both directions.
After a minute or so of sitting there, the road cleared, and I told my boyfriend, “Hang on.” Then, from a dead stop, I turned the wheel as left as it would go, and slowly, sloooowly, crept onto the road, barely even using any gas. My little car eased gently across the near lane, then slid into the far lane (which became the “right lane” to us), never even so much as grazing the guard rail or dipping its tire off the road. (Have I said how much I love my little car’s turning radius? :D)
I have to give my wub some credit here–he didn’t even flinch as we got close to the other side of the road, though his hand stayed clenched around the armrest. LOL! At last, we were finally pointed in the right direction, and we got back to the fateful intersection, this time making the turn back toward home rather than more unknown territory. (Road signs are wonderful things. Just sayin’.)
Summary
I have been incredibly lucky not to have any major fails (or accidents/dangerous situations) than these–mainly, these stories remind me to pay attention to road signs, double/triple-check my route, and ask for directions if I have to. But they’re also funny stories to tell on myself, because book smarts do not always equal road smarts. 😛