Sunday, March 17, 2013

I have to admit.....

 
 
S.O.L. #17/31
 
I have absolutely no sense of direction. Yes, I can follow a map or find it with GPS. But honestly, I would follow the GPS voice right into oblivion and wouldn’t even know I was going the wrong way until I crossed the state line. Rights and lefts, norths and souths. It is all too confusing for me.  I am that person that could have been some place twenty times and still need you to tell me how to get there.
 
 My husband on the other hand, has this internal compass. He can walk into the woods in the pitch-black of the morning and find the almost hidden deer stand he placed there at the beginning of the deer season. He knows all the highways and bi-ways of the city and even the bends and turns of backroads from here to Iowa.
 
Way back before anyone had GPS or cell phones, I went on a road trip with girlfriends who obviously weren’t aware of my directional disabilities because they ask me to drive. At the end of the evening, we had been driving for quite awhile and nothing looked familiar.  Finally, we stopped and asked “Which way to KC?”  
 We were quite surprised when the nice truck drivers at the all night truck stop revealed to us that I had traveled SIXTY miles the completely WRONG direction!! From then on, I knew driving or at least the directional part of driving was not my strong suit.
 
 
My husband pretty much just expects a phone call from me soon after I head out on a journey to a new destination (sometimes even an old one). Nowadays, I could just use my phone for voice navigation but my lack of directional awareness causes me to call him to confirm that my GPS gal is telling me the right direction. 
 My husband understands that I need to know landmarks  not just “go north on I-35”.  
I feel better hearing “turn right at the Mc Donald’s”
or “look for the house with the red door and take a left”
or “drive until you pass the horse statue.”
These landmarks are much more relevant and memorable to me.

 
I accept this as a weakness of mine. Thanks to technology advances and my exceptionally patient husband with his strong map skills, I don’t get lost very much any more.
 
........or at least not for too long!!

7 comments:

  1. Left? Right? I am one of those people who does get confused when someone tells me to turn one way or the other. I completely understand how you feel!

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  2. I often get confused too. And I would much rather have the "Turn at the horse statue" kind of directions also. I don't like the GPS, though, would much rather just have a plain old map.

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  3. I'm laughing with you on this one. I have a terrible time getting from Point A to Point B without a GPS. But it's even worse when I have friends in the car talking to me while I'm driving. I think I have done this enough that I'm off the hook for driving most of the time...

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  4. Wow. 60 miles is a lot! I think most of us can relate to getting lost. I am pretty good with directions but have a couple of stories of my own about getting lost! Thanks for sharing!

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  5. I'm usually OK with directions, but last summer when I was on my way home from visiting my cousin, she told me the wrong way to go home. I should have trusted my instincts, but instead kept going. I reached a small town that I just *knew* I had no passed on the way to her house, so I called my mom. Turns out I had driven an hour in the wrong direction, so instead of a 2 hour trip, it was now going to take me 4 hours to get home! Man was I irritated! I feel your pain!

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  6. It can be an adventure though!!! I was on a trip with a friend and her son....she was driving...I fell asleep and when I woke up asked where we were...she said that we were on a detour...but that the detour signs stopped so she did not know. Sounds like your experience of going 60 miles the wrong way. We had gone in a huge circle. That was the first time I had traveled with her, so I learned not to fall asleep the rest of the trip. I agree though, I like land marks. Jackie http://familytrove.blogspot.com/

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  7. I've done that several times! Especially when Cathy and I are going somewhere, we have ended up many miles in the opposite direction! My old car had an old GPS built in, but this one does not...everyone tells me to use the map function on my phone....they don't understand that I'm as dysfunctional with technology as I am directionally challenged!!!

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