MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Have you ever gotten really lost?

Have you ever gotten really lost?

posted 6 years ago by GlenEllyn (21592)
40 replies | jump to latest

Years ago, we moved from Florida back to Minnesota. My dad and husband drove the U-Haul. My mom and I drove our car. In the Chicago area, I was driving and my mom was navigating. She was trying to help us avoid the worst of the traffic and told me to get off on the next exit. Well, she got confused and we ended up in Chinatown. She told me to read off the street names so we could find our way back to the interstate. I said, "I can't. They're in Chinese!" She thought I was kidding until she looked up from the map.

[–] MIchiganJFrogg (-35) 6 years ago

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[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

This was a long time ago, back in the mid-80s. I've never used a Triptik map. Just maps like you used to get at the "filling" station. A couple of weeks ago Mrs Neighbor offered to give me her old GPS gizmo. She no longer needed it because her new car already had one. I thanked her but said no because I'd never use it. I prefer good old-fashioned maps, using my brain, and having an awareness of my surroundings.

[–] MIchiganJFrogg (-35) 6 years ago

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[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

I can visualize what you're describing. You're proof that it wasn't such a good idea to provide such limited information. No backup plan if you get lost. I guess AAA thought their way was so good that people would never get lost. Kind of scary, isn't it? Ending up in the wrong state. Sheesh.

[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

I found this image.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-2gfqnsB9f4/TAf6gExm_YI/AAAAAAAABTo/hQB6zq69__g/s400/2010-06-03+14.11.32.jpg

Of course, these days it would be on an app.

[–] MIchiganJFrogg (-35) 6 years ago

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[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

No need to call the police. I was not in your garage. Google image search, dontcha know. 😉

[–] MIchiganJFrogg (-35) 6 years ago

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[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

No worries. And I don't think you have a bad sense of humor. I rather enjoy it! I liked your "rooting around in my garage" question. 😁

[–] RussellNash (2087) 6 years ago

I once got lost in my own museum!

[–] MIchiganJFrogg (-35) 6 years ago

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[–] Prelude (1443) 6 years ago

Yes, long before the era of smartphones and GPS.

I was driving into San Antonio from Austin ended up I don't even know where to this day. Way out of my way and I think I even entered and exited the city back out another side of it. Am I the only one who finds that spaghetti of options to get into SA from I35 completely confusing?

[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

For a minute I thought SA meant SuperAmerica, a gas station chain here in the Upper Midwest. And I-35 runs from Texas to Duluth, so I thought you were talking about seeing an SA gas station 'right over there' on a frontage road or the like, and you couldn't figure out how to get off the interstate and to the gas station. 🏪.........🚗
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] Prelude (1443) 6 years ago

I had hoped that opening with San Antonio and Austin would set the location as Texas! ;)

But that's interesting about an "SA" gas station right off your part of the I 35!

Down in Texas the approach to entering San Antonio from Austin just seemed to throw me for a loop every time. I didn't travel in regularly enough to commit to memory which exit/entrance I needed, but went there enough that I made the same mistakes more than once. It always flummoxed me. I'm pretty sure that place I got lost to was even miles outside the other side of the city, lol.

[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

😁 You set the location perfectly! It was my brain that made the detour to the vernacular for SA. The I-35 reference sealed it - for a moment. Honest! It was only a moment. 😄

Sometimes I think the traffic engineers make things confusing on purpose. I swear that the directional signs for exits, etc. are erected by locals, for locals. Out-of-towners don't know what's coming up so they need information. My pet peeve is at interchanges when signs don't tell you which lane you need to be in; is it a ramp or a cloverleaf? If it's a cloverleaf, right lane. If it's a ramp, you discover at the last moment that you need to be in the left lane. Argh. I've missed my exit more than once because of this.

[–] Catbookss (13664) 6 years ago

It's the governments who are to blame! Typical lack of common sense 😁

There's a lot of tourism here. At one intersection they replaced a 4-way stop with a roundabout, and at the same time removed a heavily used freeway onramp near that intersection. Now everyone has to drive through a narrow street with 3 stop signs to get to the next onramp.

Meanwhile, the roundabout is so poorly designed and has such unclear signage, even us locals ended up in the wrong lane and whooshed off into the opposite direction from where we wanted to go. But at least we know how to get back on point, even if it's a PITA. Can't imagine how frustrating it'd be for out-of-towners.

Even worse, unless they've changed it, is the rat's nest in and around LAX. Same thing you're talking about, no way to know in advance which lane you need to be in, and that's at an international airport for crying out loud!

[–] godewey (16472) 6 years ago

Moving cross country we got lost in Oklahoma. I was driving a Uhaul and somehow ended up on
some country road. I decided to turn around. As I was trying to make a u-turn I hit a mail box.
I had no idea i had hit it. As I started to drive away I looked in the mirror and saw a man in nothing
but his underwear holding a rifle chasing me.
We worked it all out. I helped him straighten his mail box and we were good.
Turned out to be a nice guy and even gave me directions.
He even apologized for being his skivvies.

[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

Now this is the kind of story I like to hear! 😄

[–] snepts (11123) 6 years ago

True story:
This morning I couldn't find my car. I had appointments I needed to get to and my car wasn't anywhere I thought I left it.
I couldn't find any tow truck signs and started to wander into shops to ask but everyone was too busy to talk to me.

Gradually, I began to wake up, and realized I had been dreaming. I'm at home and my car (SUV) is in the garage.

[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

😄 Dreams can be weird...and funny, too.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

I worked for the Tax Dept and we used to have to go to lake country about 3 hours north of Toronto. Got lost up there a number of times on the rural routes.

[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

There are worse places to be lost. Like Chinatown - all that hubbub of people, traffic, noise, etc. It was a bit stressful, and my mother blamed me for it. But I do laugh over the Chinese street signs. This was before cell phones so we were anxious to find the guys.

[–] db20db (17347) 6 years ago

I've done a lot of commercial driving since the 70s and believe it or not, I never felt genuinely lost until I relied (big mistake) upon the GPS in my truck just 11 years ago. It had me going in circles for hours to nonexistent locations ( an empty field for instance ). I finally had to resort to the non-real man solution of stopping and asking for directions, lol !

[–] GlenEllyn (21592) 6 years ago

I don't know where that "men don't ask directions" thing came from, but it's silly. Being an old fogy, I'd rather rely on my brain than some contraption that could go on the fritz just when I need it most.

[–] db20db (17347) 6 years ago

Our " silly " society, lol.

[–] Prelude (1443) 6 years ago

That's the thing I don't like about the new tech for this stuff - I feel far more comfortable relying on old fashioned maps and common sense and yes, asking for directions, than what a machine tells me to do. I feel disconnected from the process when following directions issued to me by GPS, but I feel in tune with where I'm going if I figured it out for myself.

(Unless I get lost just before San Antonio, that is! )

[–] Catbookss (13664) 6 years ago

"I feel disconnected from the process when following directions issued to me by GPS, but I feel in tune with where I'm going if I figured it out for myself."

Yes!! I feel like I'm travelling almost blind, following the GPS directions, with no overview. It's disconcerting.

[–] croft_alice (12180) 6 years ago

In the woods,when I was a kid

[–] Prelude (1443) 6 years ago

That reminds me of something my older brother claimed one time after a family ramble when I was a kid.

We had all been on a walk through the forest, and as we made out way out and home, we realized my brother -- and his girlfriend -- were no longer with us.

When they arrived home an hour or so later, they claimed they "got lost in the woods" and couldn't find their way...for a while....LOL! ;)

[–] croft_alice (12180) 6 years ago

I get it😉but not in my case