You Can't Get There From Here
Aug. 25th, 2009 07:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gfitzI am going to preface this by saying that i am directionally challenged. I can get lost back-tracking even with directions. Sad but true. However the California highway signs do not help. They should be idiot proof. They should be bold and noticable. Perhaps they need neon flashing lights or something. For the directionally challenged like me.
There are *counts on fingers* 6 bridges in the Bay Area and I nearly crossed all of them on Saturday, some of them twice. I drove over 310 miles and that is a conservative estimate. Why you ask? I went to a baby shower. I needed to pick up my mother. That is 68 miles one way from my house to theirs. We then left to travel another 60 miles to the baby shower. So far, so good.
Return trip, gave mom the directions I had printed and asked her to read them backwards to me. Mistake #1. My mother can barely see and is easily distracted by memories of dancing under the stars in Larkspur. Mistake #2. Not insisting my employer add GPS to my iPhone because it talks to you and alerts you when you are approaching your exit/destination. So while I was looking for I-580 East to the Richmond/San Rafael exit (which by the way does not exist when traveling southbound on 101) I ended up approaching the Golden Gate. Now this would have required me to travel across 2 bridges, the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge plus go through Golden Gate Park on a Saturday. Not going to happen.
Exit - Sausalito. Normally I would have parked and had a few drinks at one of my old haunts but not with the parental units. Got back on the freeway heading north again and finally FINALLY found a teeny tiny sign that said Richmond Bridge. No I-580 East, just a small small sign and I still hesitated since I am a literal person and wanted the sign to have that I-580 info on it.
Oh did I mention the craptastic directions my mother gave me to get back on the freeway from San Rafael? You know those directions I asked her to read backwards? Yeah, not good. I could see the freeway but I couldn't get to it.
Oh and the icing on this cake? Driving home the freeway interchange that I take to go home was closed. CLOSED. I ended up going another 40ish miles out of my way just to get home and by the time I got there my arms felt like they would fall out of the sockets.
I wish I could post a map of the routes I took that day. And the worst of it? I had to drive back out there yesterday.
There are *counts on fingers* 6 bridges in the Bay Area and I nearly crossed all of them on Saturday, some of them twice. I drove over 310 miles and that is a conservative estimate. Why you ask? I went to a baby shower. I needed to pick up my mother. That is 68 miles one way from my house to theirs. We then left to travel another 60 miles to the baby shower. So far, so good.
Return trip, gave mom the directions I had printed and asked her to read them backwards to me. Mistake #1. My mother can barely see and is easily distracted by memories of dancing under the stars in Larkspur. Mistake #2. Not insisting my employer add GPS to my iPhone because it talks to you and alerts you when you are approaching your exit/destination. So while I was looking for I-580 East to the Richmond/San Rafael exit (which by the way does not exist when traveling southbound on 101) I ended up approaching the Golden Gate. Now this would have required me to travel across 2 bridges, the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge plus go through Golden Gate Park on a Saturday. Not going to happen.
Exit - Sausalito. Normally I would have parked and had a few drinks at one of my old haunts but not with the parental units. Got back on the freeway heading north again and finally FINALLY found a teeny tiny sign that said Richmond Bridge. No I-580 East, just a small small sign and I still hesitated since I am a literal person and wanted the sign to have that I-580 info on it.
Oh did I mention the craptastic directions my mother gave me to get back on the freeway from San Rafael? You know those directions I asked her to read backwards? Yeah, not good. I could see the freeway but I couldn't get to it.
Oh and the icing on this cake? Driving home the freeway interchange that I take to go home was closed. CLOSED. I ended up going another 40ish miles out of my way just to get home and by the time I got there my arms felt like they would fall out of the sockets.
I wish I could post a map of the routes I took that day. And the worst of it? I had to drive back out there yesterday.