When I travel, I print out driving directions from Mapquest. I put in where I'm starting from, and where I'm going to, and then I follow those directions. I've only been let down a couple of times. Once, a road had disappeared that they had said to follow, on another occasion it was a left exit onto a highway instead of a right exit, and since I was on a road that was heavy with traffic, I had to speed up and put on my turn signal and do some pretty aggressive driving to get over in time, which had my little heart all aflutter.
But 99% of the time Mapquest has served me well.
A few days ago, I was planning a trip to Sweetwater, Texas. I have relatives in Burleson, Texas, so my plan was to go to Burleson first, leaving on a Thursday, spending that night in a hotel, arriving at my relatives on Friday and spending a night there, then going to Sweetwater early the next morning.
So I printed out directions from Cheyenne (where I live) to Burleson (where I was going.) The route took me down a certain highway, through Fort Worth on 35W S, and below that to Burleson.
Then a storm front moved in on Thursday, and I decided to postpone my trip a day. So I changed my plans. I would drive toward Sweetwater on Friday, spending one night in a hotel, and get up early enough the next morning to reach Sweetwater by noon, when the event I wanted to attend was to take place.
So I printed out directions from Cheyenne to Sweetwater.
But I didn't print out directions from Sweetwater to Burleson. [I had driven from Burleson to Sweetwater, and back, once before, and knew that Highway 20 would take me there.]
So on Saturday I arrived at Sweetwater, on 20E. And when the event was over and it was time to drive to Burleson, I got back on 20E instead of heading on 20W, which is what I should have done.
Now, truth to tell, I really should have known I was heading in the wrong direction. And of course if I'd printed out directions from Sweetwater to Burleson, I wouldn't have had the problem, either.
More than that...I did have a map in the car. I just didn't look at it.
For some reason I had it stuck in my head that since I'd come to Sweetwater via 20E, I had to continue on 20E to get to Burleson.
To cut a long story short, I drove for two hours the wrong way. I knew I was supposed to be going past Abiliene and heading in the direction of Fort Worth, but I was so busy daydreaming on certain subjects and listening to an audio book that the fact that I hadn't seen any signs for Abilene or Fort Worth did't register.
Fortunately, just outside Odessa, Texas there was a meteor crater museum. I decided to stop there before cottinuing on to my relatives. After an hour of looking around, I got back in my car, and just out of curiosity, looked at the map. And to my horror and embarrasment, discovered what I'd done.
I headed back in the proper direction at 80 mph for the entire stretch - which wasted a lot of gas, but I'd wasted so much time and my relatives go to bed early and I didn't want them to have to stay up too late....
All this could have been avoided if I'd:
1. just printed out the directions from Sweetwater to Burleson. But, because I had the directions from Cheyenne to Burleson, which had me going to Fort Worth, I figured I'd just take 20 E (which of course should have been west!) into Fort Worth, find 35W S, and then follow the directions from there. And of course if I'd printed out the appropriate directions, I could have avoided going into Fort Worth, with heavy traffic at pitch black 9 pm at night, altogether.
2. looked at the map and verified my route, and realized that I wanted 20E instead of W. I still dont' know how I came to make that mistake, but I had a lot of stuff on my mind and for some reason it had just become an idee fixe there that I needed to take 20E, so I didn't even look at the map. So of course I learned my lesson the hard way.
Of course there's always a silver lining. If I hadn't driven two hours out of my way, I'd have never have known there was a meteor crater in Odessa, Texas. Now, of course, I have a reason to return there.
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