A thread for direction-giving stories!  Talk about times when you've been a Certified Directions Master, tossing out brilliant directions to a passing motorist while mowing the lawn or on a walk or whatever else...your audience at the time had no appreciation for your brilliance, but we will, so do tell!  Or when you've screwed up directions (unintentionally, of course!), or, as my story has, you were put in a tough spot, and weren't sure of the best decision to make...

 

**************

 

My wife and I walked to a Reds game last week, and when we were right where Eastern becomes Riverside Drive now, walking down that Kemper Lane Extension, a car pulled up and asked us for help.  Being a Certified Directions Master, I was pleased at the opportunity to impress all and sundry with my tremendous skill.

 

And they had to ask me how to get to the frickin' Celestial.

 

For those not from around here, the answer is, "there's no easy way."  My first instinct was: turn around (they were already partway up Kemper, which is one-way, but whatever), back down Riverside to Eggleston - "do you know where Eggleston is?" "No, we're from out of town." Damn.  OK, I think it's the 2nd light...yeah, 2nd light, then right, then...is it the first right?  That's the 50 entrance ramp - but you've gotta turn left onto Monestary under there, I think the first left, or you're on 50 and you can bend over because you're screwed...if you catch that turn, you're golden - if you miss it, you're stopping again for directions in the AmeriStop at Stanley in Columbia-Tusculum.

 

I figured the danger of missing Monestary under there or getting turned around was too great, and the consequences too severe.  So I pulled out my notepad that I brought to keep score at the game on, drew a little map, and sent them like this: up Kemper Lane here to 50, right on 50 then an immediate left at the light (figured that's pretty straightforward, and you could see hints of the light from where we were standing).  Up the hill, then the first left is Luray...that angles into Eden Park Drive, so just turn soft right there and head through the park (still pretty easy).  Then that winds, gotta go around the roundabout to stay on Eden Park Drive...past the lake...then left at the fork, up the hill, past the Art Museum, last left onto Ida, then go straight 'till you see it...

 

With a map and turn-by-turn directions, I figure they probably got there - and even if they made a mistake, they were at least closer to their goal that way.  But man, there just ain't no good way to get people around frickin' Mt. Adams.

With a map and turn-by-turn directions, I figure they probably got there - and even if they made a mistake, they were at least closer to their goal that way.  But man, there just ain't no good way to get people around frickin' Mt. Adams.

 

Wow, I'm very impressed!  It's very hard to give directions to any place in Mt. Adams.  If it's not on St. Gregory Street or right off of it, I tend to drive around until I find where I'm going.

 

I have taken a few art classes at the Art Academy when it was in Mt. Adams.  Getting there was easy, but it was getting out of Mt. Adams that always confused me.  During the first class I took there, I went home a different route each time.  :laugh:  By the time I took the second class, I figured it out near the beginning of the class.  Now I'm much more comfortable driving around Mt. Adams, but I could never give directions to anyone on getting out.

Often when I'm outside doing yard work, especially on a weekend, lost drivers stop and ask me to help them get found. Not surprisingly for Fort Wayne, many of them aren't even from out of town, just from some subdivision in Aboite township.

 

They often have no knowledge even of the major streets, and verbal directions that they can grasp are difficult. If they're looking for I-69, that's easy. I just tell them, "Turn right at the one-way street and keep going 'til you come to it. It's about ten miles." That's not the shortest way, but it's the simplest, and involves no turns.

 

I've been intending to print a batch of maps of downtown and the surrounding area and keep a stack of them handy in the garage to hand out.

Nice work, RiverViewer!

 

Only story I can tell is of my saddest direction-giving opportunity.  While about on one of my photo excursions here in Madison, I had stopped to write out a birthday card for my mom and drop it in a mailbox, when a couple driving stopped and asked if I knew where some restaurant or other was.  Unfortunately I didn't and told them so, but when I looked it up later, it turned out the restaurant was right around the corner from where we were!  D'oh!

 

I would like another chance.  Navigating the Isthmus can be somewhat of a pain due to opposing one-ways and disconnected streets, something you may have noticed, RV.  So maybe one day it can give me the test to become a Certified Directions Master.  It's no Mt. Adams, but it might do.

I've gotten so lousy with my lefts and rights (my innate sense is still sharp, I just can't put it into a spoken word form for anyone) I can't be trusted to give correct directions to campus or downtown anymore.  :oops:

Walking the streets of Oxford, I can recall three events. In two, the drivers were asking for McDonalds--of all places!--and the other was seeking directions to Greene, Ohio! Directions to I-75 wern't sufficient, I had to tell the lady the interstates to take to get to I-77. Honestly I can understand needing directions to 75, but how could anyone not know the major interstates across Ohio!?!

People ask me for directions in downtown Cincinnati quite a bit.  I guess it looks like I know where I'm going.  ;)  I'm usually able to help them out because I do know the area pretty well. 

 

I have also helped in other ways.  For example, last Saturday I was shopping at Macy's in Fountain Place.  Two women ask a cashier if there are any toy stores down town.  These women were visiting from another city.  The cashier told them that there are no toy stores.  Overhearing this conversion, I told the women that TJ Maxx a block over does have a toy section.  I also told them that the gift shop at the Contemporary Arts Center usually has toys as well.  They seemed very appreciative of this information.

I was standing on a street corner in Lodi when a car pulled up to me and asked how to get to Miami. I asked in they meant in Ohio. Nope. They wanted directions to Miami, Florida. I suggested they might want to get a map, but I was pretty sure it was "really far south." :|

Often when I'm exploring small towns, drivers stop and ask me for directions. Sometimes I can help, usually not. I guess it's so rare to see a pedestrian, let alone an out-of-towner, in any midwestern small town, that people think I must belong there. Or maybe I just look/dress like a hick. :| You'd think the camera would tip them off that I'm weird, maybe even dangerously so. :weird:

for some reason people love asking me for directions, however its never in cleveland or detroit: it usually happens in random ass towns like mansfield, defiance, east liverpool, etc.

I was working the ticket counter at Port Columbus one afternoon when two young men approached me asking where they could find Southeast Airlines.

 

(For those that don't know, Southeast was a scheduled-charter airline that flew from Columbus Rickenbacker with flights to Orlando-Sanford and St. Petersburg back when the airport had scheduled commercial passenger service. Also, the airport is a good ways away from Port Columbus, on the far southeast side by Groveport.)

 

I proceeded to tell them that they were at the wrong airport, and whether they knew where Rickenbacker was and how to get there. The guy driving his friend to the airport had recently relocated to Columbus and didn't know the highways at all, and his friend didn't know where it was either. Since they were in a race against time, I quickly scribbled out directions on the back of a luggage tag, telling them to take International Gateway Drive back to I-670W, then to take I-71S to I-270E until they got to Alum Creek Dr., which is a straight shot all the way to the Rickenbacker airport terminal. They thanked me and ran back to the parking garage. I went back to work, but during that time, I realized in my own haste to get them on their way and to continue checking people in, that I might have accidently wrote "I-270W" by mistake instead of east! I would love to know whether they ever made it to Rickenbacker...

I work in downtown Cleveland and I get asked for directions usually about once a week (usually to the Justice Center). I just have to remember that people just don't want to know that it's 26 floors, with sculptures by Isamu Noguchi and George Segal, constructed in 1976... you get the idea.

I work in downtown Cleveland and I get asked for directions usually about once a week (usually to the Justice Center). I just have to remember that people just don't want to know that it's 26 floors, with sculptures by Isamu Noguchi and George Segal, constructed in 1976... you get the idea.

 

LOL!  That's hilarious...

I usually walk with my dog for a mile or so each day.  Last summer, I was walking alongside the country road I live on and an older gentleman (I think he was from near Toledo/Ottawa County) pulled up and told me he was driving to Columbus but he couldn't find the right highway or something because of a detour (the only detour that I knew of was Route 99, which isn't a road to Columbus).  Anyway, I found out that he had driven almost to the Richland County border (the right direction, south) but somehow he ended up on my road in southern Erie County, travelling north (not towards Columbus  :-D ), 20 miles in the wrong direction.

 

It was kind of hard to keep a straight face  :-D; hopefully he made it  :laugh:

 

 

Sometimes elderly people with dementia (often Alzheimer's) get completely disoriented while running comparatively short errands, and end up hundreds or even thousands of miles from home, with no idea where they are or how they got there. I suspect he was on the way to becoming totally lost, and didn't even realize it; I hope he was carrying some kind of identification, so that when a trooper finds him sleeping in his car in Schenectady, they can reunite him with his spouse/family.

 

Because normally-functioning people take logic and memory for granted, we can't possibly comprehend how people who have no short-term memory experience the events and places around them. We can gain a limited understanding when we deal with an elderly parent, someone who was intuitive and perceptive and seemed to know what we were thinking as kids, almost before we knew it, and who made smart long-term decisions in providing for and protecting a family, who can't remember where he/she lives, what his/her house looks like, or anything recent that has taken place outside the last few seconds. People with dementia don't comprehend that they have dementia, and don't remember that they don't remember. (Mom, age 95).

I wasn't being disrespectful.  I guess I failed to mention that he told me he drives to Columbus many times each year.  Also, my best guess is that he was not older than 60.