Driving Directions - Can I get there from here?

[BoxHead]

I recently had to attend a family event in a rural area about 100 miles away. When I called for directions I had to get clarification on directions like “turn left where they’re going to build the new church.”

Thought others might have interesting driving directions they’ve received over the years.

My favorite misdirection was a few years ago when I was looking for an Insurance Agent’s office in a small town and pulled into a convenience store to ask for directions. The clerk opened the phone book to a local map and traced her finger along the page until she finally found the spot I was looking for. “There it is,” she said to herself. Then, looking me right in the eye, she asked, “Where are you, now?”


John




When Galileo theorized that Aristotle's view of the Universe contained errors, he was labeled a fool.
It wasn't until he proved it that he was called dangerous.

 

[sleipnir214]

I remember the old T.V. show "F Troop", in which there was a running joke that directions to the fort always began, "Take a left at the rock that looks like a bear and a right at the bear that looks like a rock...".


I was once given driving directions that required me to go through a series of forks in dirt roads, always taking the right fork until I smelled creosote. At that fork, I was to take the left fork.


And one time in Maine, I had a native actually tell me, "You can't get there from here -- you have to go out to the highway." I had thought it was just an old sterotype.



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[SantaMufasa]

The most colourful direction-givers on earth, I believe, are the Great Britons. When I lived there, if I ever needed directions, they would go something like this:

Let me think...Ah, yes...Do you know the "Fox and Hound" pub? Well, you don't go there. You must first go there (pointing off in the non-distinct distance), then you carry on down around. Next, you find your third turning and go there. Later, you bear right at your second roundabout. Soon, you will be where you want to be.

Oh, to be in England

(Soon, when) April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!...

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
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[chiph]

I grew up in a town where the roads were laid out by aimlessly wandering cows (are there any other type?), so often you could go from point A to point C only if you went through point B first.

Chip H.


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[BoxHead]

...where the roads were laid out by aimlessly wandering cows (are there any other type?)...

In the Chicago area, the roads were laid out by aimlessly wondering Civil Engineers and shamelessly pandering politicians. To get from Point A to Point C, drive through the construction zone and pay a toll at Point B.

 

[KenCunningham]

Dave makes a good point about British direction-giving. More often than not, they will include reference to some pub or other. As a good few of the pubs have been around for decades if not centuries and can be easily discerned from the signage which often hangs out over the road or atop it's own pole, this seems reasonable to me.

 

[snuv]

My grandfather use to give directions that sometimes included "go past the field that doesnt have a horse in it"

Apparently there was always a horse in a particular field and when the horse was no longer kept in the field, he ammended the directions accordingly

"If it could have gone wrong earlier and it didn't, it ultimately would have been beneficial for it to have." : Murphy's Ultimate Corollary

 

[columb]

The UK road system mostly reflects it's age. I'm constantly amazed when visiting the states by the grid like street system and, especially out west, addresses that read like map references.

i.e. 1247 North 54th St is the 47th house between 12th avenues and 13th avenue on the 54th street north from town centre (or something like that).

By comparison London taxi drivers have to take a strict test before getting their license (the Knowledge with a capital K) because it takes years to find your way around.

As to why we brits use pubs as reference points.
[ol]
[li]There's lots of them[/li]
[li]They have distinctive names[/li]
[li]They have large obvious signs outside[/li]
[/ol]
If I said turn left at St Stephens Church you would have to slow down to read the notice board. If I said turn left at the Eagle and Child the large sign with a picture of an eagle holding a baby is a dead giveaway. Furthermore you're more likely to find me in the Eagle and Child than in St Stephens!

Columb Healy

 

[johnwm]

I know this story is true, because my Dad told me nearly sixty years ago.
Most of England's old roads come from one of two sources. Those built by the Romans between around AD54 and AD450 were built to Imperial standards, and were carefully aligned from point to point, well-engineered and straight.
The others were built by the Britons, and are easily recognised by their many twists and turns. This is because the ancient Brits preferred working with their backs to the wind.

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[Error7]

The first time we ever went to Florida (Brit's here), we collected our hire car and headed off for the hotel. After driving for a good while we stopped to pay at a toll booth. I took the opportunity to ask the cashier if we were heading in the right direction. No, she said, you need to turn round and head the opposite way. We turned the car round at the booth but then had to pay the toll again.

Many miles later, and getting dark by now, I stopped at a filling station for fuel and asked the lady attendent if she knew where the hotel is. She didn't but she kindly phoned the hotel to ask where they were located.

O.K. she said, it's on this highway in that direction, pointing to her right.

Any idea how far, I asked.

Yep. It's about 60 miles!!!

[gray]Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.[/gray]

 

[2ffat]

<slightly off-topic>
I once saw a sign on a motel. On one side it said,

You've gone too far for me...

While on the other side it said,

If the other side of this sign you see...

Think about it. It made sense no matter which way you drove past the sign.
</slightly off-topic>


James P. Cottingham
-----------------------------------------
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[CorBlimeyLimey]

This is because the ancient Brits preferred working with their backs to the wind.

You should really use the emoticons to let people know when you are joking.
... You were joking ... weren't you?

[Cheers]

 

[BJCooperIT]

My father-in-law once gave the following directions:

Go down Rt. 30 and turn right where the sawmill used to be.

If I had lived in that town long enough to remember the sawmill, I suspect I would not have been asking for directions!

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant Developer/Analyst Oracle, Forms, Reports & PL/SQL (Windows)
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[Trevoke]

I didn't receive these myself, but heard about them.

Someone was driving in .. Texas, or Arizona, or one of these big empty states and stopped at a house to ask for directions.
He said that this is what he was told:

"Go straight for 5 or 6 miles until you see the tree, then take the first left."

"That time in Seattle... was a nightmare. I came out of it dead broke, without a house, without anything except a girlfriend and a knowledge of UNIX."
"Well, that's something," Avi says. "Normally those two are mutually exclusive."
-- Neal Stephenson, "Cryptonomicon"

 

[johnwm]

cbl

I know this story is true, because my Dad told me ...

I hoped the irony would be sufficient

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[CorBlimeyLimey]

Oh I see. Well you know the old saying ... "irony is wasted on the stupid"

[Cheers]

 

[SQLSister]

where I grew up there was a small town nearby that for years only had one traffic light. Then they took it out. Now they give directions - turn where the light used to be. Of course the light hasn;t been there for something like 20 years.

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[SantaMufasa]

1247 North 54th St is the 47th house between 12th avenues and 13th avenue on the 54th street north from town centre (or something like that).

Such (American) grid-work for our towns derives from our not having cows design our roads.

I live on a mountainside at the edge of the Salt Lake Valley [the eastern edge of the Great American Desert that stretches westward from here for 535 miles (861 km), northward for 230 miles (370 km), and southward for more than 2000 miles to Mexico City]. When Brigham Young (The Great American Coloniser) stuck his cane in the desolate desert valley floor 160 years ago, he declared that the Pioneers would build a Temple on that spot and that they would address/measure all points in the colony from that spot, in a grid.

Today, my home address is 10037 South 3170 East...Each unit is 2 meters. Therefore, my home is precisely 20,074 meters south of the Temple Square's southeast corner and 6,340 meters east of that spot.

It makes is remarkably easy to find any spot in the Valley even though one has never been to that spot before.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[

http://www.dasages.com:

Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.

 

[sleipnir214]

<facetious>
Okay.....

But then how do you give directions to the temple?

</facetious>



Want the best answers? Ask the best questions! TANSTAAFL!

 

[Trevoke]

All the roads lead to the temple. If they don't, you're going in the wrong direction."

"That time in Seattle... was a nightmare. I came out of it dead broke, without a house, without anything except a girlfriend and a knowledge of UNIX."
"Well, that's something," Avi says. "Normally those two are mutually exclusive."
-- Neal Stephenson, "Cryptonomicon"