Worst directions you were ever given (just for fun)

[teachermom2834]

Related- I have a hard time getting service workers out to my home which I know is a problem everywhere but a sticking point seems to be that the workers don’t know me. I have called for service and been asked who lived in my house before. I was asked, by a tree service, who I was kin to. ???? What the heck? When I can’t identify my family or the previous owners of my home apparently I am untrustworthy. 

To clarify- I live in a neighborhood that used to have a golf course on it and am less than a mile off the interstate and our town is not that small at all (there are three large high schools and all the big box stores, etc). But the growth is relatively recent and I guess people that have lived here forever don’t appreciate newcomers. I don’t know. Could be my Yankee accent too. LOL.

Small town life is different for sure.

[fairfarmhand]

On 2/9/2019 at 8:33 AM, Ausmumof3 said:

I have probably given more horrible directions than I have received.  Don’t ask me for directions unless you want to end up like Hansel and Gretel 

Me too! I’ve avoided reading this thread for that very reason.

[Mimm]

I don't know if this counts but one time I was in Eureka Springs Arkansas for a wedding. The ceremony was held at this ridiculously beautiful little chapel that's all windows, close to sunset, and then we were to head to a nearby old hotel for the reception. It was dark and we plugged the address of the hotel into our GPS... Apparently our GPS thought we should go a different way than everyone else because we soon lost all the other cars. It was dark and this town is hilly with windy roads and a very confusing layout. Soon we were on this one lane road winding through the woods thinking, "Wait, this hotel is supposed to be about a five minute drive. Where are we and are we going to be murdered here?" But we didn't know what to do, so we just kept following the bossy voice on the GPS. Then we took a turn and there it was, the hotel, right it front of us. 🙂

[Farrar]

Oh my gosh. I have so many bad directions stories. I feel like many of them start with my father saying, "Well, Farrar, it's real simple..."

I was once lost in the Bronx and that was an epic filled with bad directions.

I think one of my worst ones was this group of guys sitting outside a Kroger in Gainesville, GA. I was trying to take this road that would get me back to 85N. They repeatedly gave me directions to 985, which, if you know north Georgia, begins in Gainesville and only goes from there to Atlanta, which is south of there. No, I kept saying, there's this road (I can't remember the local highway name now) and if I get on that and drive for like 20 miles, it will take me to 85N and I've just gotten turned around, please help me get back to that road. But why would I want to do that, they wanted to know. Where could I possibly be going that wasn't Atlanta? I'm like, I'm trying to go HOME. I live in Washington, DC. That really confused them. Oh my.

[Scarlett]

On 2/12/2019 at 9:39 PM, Mimm said:

I don't know if this counts but one time I was in Eureka Springs Arkansas for a wedding. The ceremony was held at this ridiculously beautiful little chapel that's all windows, close to sunset, and then we were to head to a nearby old hotel for the reception. It was dark and we plugged the address of the hotel into our GPS... Apparently our GPS thought we should go a different way than everyone else because we soon lost all the other cars. It was dark and this town is hilly with windy roads and a very confusing layout. Soon we were on this one lane road winding through the woods thinking, "Wait, this hotel is supposed to be about a five minute drive. Where are we and are we going to be murdered here?" But we didn't know what to do, so we just kept following the bossy voice on the GPS. Then we took a turn and there it was, the hotel, right it front of us. 🙂

Dh and I honeymooned in Eureka springs.  It is lovely.  And very hilly and curvy

Edited February 18, 2019 by Scarlett
To add ‘I’....because I was there too.

[MEmama]

15 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

Related- I have a hard time getting service workers out to my home which I know is a problem everywhere but a sticking point seems to be that the workers don’t know me. I have called for service and been asked who lived in my house before. I was asked, by a tree service, who I was kin to. ???? What the heck? When I can’t identify my family or the previous owners of my home apparently I am untrustworthy. 

To clarify- I live in a neighborhood that used to have a golf course on it and am less than a mile off the interstate and our town is not that small at all (there are three large high schools and all the big box stores, etc). But the growth is relatively recent and I guess people that have lived here forever don’t appreciate newcomers. I don’t know. Could be my Yankee accent too. LOL.

Small town life is different for sure.

I've learned some fascinating stories about my house from service workers. I'm always surprised when they've been here before and know their way around. 

 

[Little Nyssa]

 

Almost missed a wedding reception... the directions we were told were 'the restaurant is 1213 Porter Street.'

After following Mapquest out into the desert for 40 minutes and not finding it... and travelling back into town to get cell phone coverage so we could call someone and ask... we found that that wasn't the ADDRESS. That was the restaurant's ACTUAL NAME! 

(Name changed in this post to protect the innocent)

[Garga]

I’ve vistied my parents in their new town across the country from me about three times now.  

When we visit, we tend to go to a lot of local stores with them—we head to Walmart to get a chicken for dinner, we head to the Dollar Store for some birthday candles for a birthday celebration.  Since we’re all on vacation, we head to stores a lot and buy what we need for the day rather than stocking up.  It gives us something to do while we’re all visiting together.  My dad would ride with us or give us directions and we were always making about 300 turns through all different neighborhoods depending on which store we were going to.  What a pain!  I could never keep track of where we were.  My mom was no help.  She stopped driving 20 years ago and has never driven on her own in the town where they live and never pays attention to how my dad gets places.  It can be frustrating to take her out to the store if my dad stays home.  So many turns!  

Finally, on our third vacation with them, DH and I were celebrating a wedding anniversary so we ventured out on our own to find a restaurant.  We used an app on the phone to find the restaurant.  Turns out, all of the stores/businesses that we’d been going to (all of them) were actually on my parent’s street if you went far enough.  No turns required at all.  Simply hang a left out of the driveway and keep going until you hit a long strip of all the businesses.

My dad likes to take the “scenic” route and kept taking us through different neighborhoods each time.  He never once took us on the straight route all the way down to the end of his street to where ALL the stores are.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Garga

[Garga]

On 2/9/2019 at 9:36 AM, teachermom2834 said:

I moved to a small town a few years ago. Things are still called by what they were 30 years ago. So, there is a middle school located in what used to be the high school. It is often referred to as “Old Small Town High” instead of it’s current name which doesn’t have the name of the town in at all. Very confusing when someone sends you there.

I get directions all the time that say something like turn where the elementary school used to be or where the church burned down. 

There was a local Christmas event that was even listed in the paper as located at “The Old Post Office”. Took me a long time online to figure out where the event was. The old post office has been a different government building for many years. 

Sometimes it is funny but mostly it reminds me I’ll never belong here 😞

 

I’m another one in a town like that.  There was some event I wanted to attend the first month we got here, but the only directions were that it was at “the old Miller farm.”  I didn’t even know where to begin to find the place, so I just didn’t go.

I have become friends with a local and she knows everyone and when I told her that story, she was like, “Oh yeah.  That was my uncle’s farm.  It hasn’t been a farm in 20 years.”   She’s related to just about everyone in town and doesn’t quite get how annoying it is to be a newcomer here.  🙂.  She didn’t seem to realize that saying, “it’s at the old Miller farm,” is not a valid set of directions.  

Edited February 18, 2019 by Garga

[Garga]

On 2/13/2019 at 8:00 AM, MEmama said:

I've learned some fascinating stories about my house from service workers. I'm always surprised when they've been here before and know their way around. 

 

Our heating guy knew exactly how to tweak our old heater because he’d been coming in to service it for a dozen years before we moved in.  I think he’s been the heating guy at this house for at least three owners and I’ve been here 15 years now.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Garga

[Pegasus]

I'm loving the stories and thought I'd share another "best directions" anecdote.

I was on my way to visit some relatives who live way out in the middle of nowhere on a narrow gravel road that connects to other narrow gravel roads. I knew ONE way to get there from my direction and could wiggle my way there from the nearest small town (on the opposite side from where I was coming from).  I was driving by myself when I encountered a roadblock across the parkway, just a couple miles from where I would turn off onto the labyrinth of gravel roads. I pulled over and to study  an old fashioned paper map, trying to figure out how to get to the small town and find my way from there.

An angel in the form of a park ranger stopped his car and asked if I needed assistance. I explained where I was trying to go and that if I could find "small town" that I would be ok.  He started to try to verbally give me directions on how to get around the roadblock and back to the parkway but then stopped and just said "follow me."  I followed him for 25 minutes and through such a convoluted route with so many twists and turns and lots of nothing that I figured I was done for. There was no way I could turn around and backtrack it myself.  Finally, he pulled into a nature trail head parking area and waved me past; as I past him, I saw a sign back to the parkway on the other side of the parking area, not far past the roadblock area! 

Edited February 19, 2019 by Pegasus

[Xahm]

In college, a group of us were invited to a friend's "Sunday dinner" at his grandmother's. This was in rural South Carolina, and he told us it was easy to get to. "Just take the first left after the Little Cricket and it'll be the big house on the right." We didn't think this was enough information, but he assured us it was. Cell reception was really spotty, so it was hard for us to reach him to complain that Little Cricket, which we'd never heard of before, was a very well established chain of gas stations in that immediate area. The only things we saw driving were houses, churches, and Little Crickets. Once we finally found the right one, it turned out his grandmother's house was very easy to find.