I am directionally challenged, to say the least. I have no idea, at any given time, which way is north and which way is south. For a long while I begged and pleaded with my husband to help me find a way to include the luxury of purchasing a GPS system into our budget, to no avail. We joked about Ray being my personal GPS guide, since I would call him any time I got lost or just couldn’t find my way. He always knew exactly where I was and how to get to where I wanted to go.
Magellen, however, came to my rescue with the RoadMate 1212. I don’t have to call Ray from the road, in desperation, because I don’t go anywhere without this baby! As far as GPS systems go, this one is pretty affordable, and is amazingly easy to use. You can see your position on the interactive map, plus distance to the next turn, distance to destination, estimated time of arrival, street names and more, all at a glance. The simple touch-screen menu presents easy options, and voice guidance offers worry-free driving, with spoken turn-by-turn directions, so you can keep your eyes on the road.
With it’s split-screen capability and SayWhere text-to-speech, the Magellan RoadMate 1212 is fun and easy to use. So far I’ve used it to find my way to a new doctor’s office, I’ve found the closest Pei Wei to my then-current destination, and even discovered a quicker way to get downtown. If I ever miss a turn because I’m yelling at talking to one of my kiddos, my new friend will automatically re-route… How’s that for nice?
Did I mention it is easy to use? Okay, I did.
How about that you can win one? Yep, you will have the chance to win a Magellan RoadMate 1212 of your very own!
Here’s how to enter:
- Leave me a comment on this post, before 9pm (pacific) on September 30th, with your best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) LOST story. Now, I don’t want any stories about that popular TV show… I want real stories about a time when you were really lost.
- For an extra entry in the random drawing, feel free to subscribe to my blog feed , but make sure you leave me a separate comment saying you did.
- A single commenter, chosen at random, will win a Magellen RoadMate 1212. The winner will be notified via email, so make sure you leave a valid email address in your comment.
Good luck!
This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Leeanthro! You can see her LOST story HERE.
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My mom and I were going on a road trip to check out some colleges. We were in MI, supposedly heading toward IN. I was driving, Mom was sleeping, and apparently I have no sense of direction! Mom woke up to me yelling and slamming on the brakes. The reason for this? The WELCOME TO PENNSYLVANIA sign!! I had completely bypassed IN, and hadn’t noticed. I did think that it was taking a really long time, but I had good music and was just cruising!
-Abby HC harris.correll@gmail.com
I have several lost stories, but the most recent is from a few years ago when I was trying to find a place in town where my husband was doing a show. I had been driving around for about 30 min or so, it got dark and I wasn’t in the best area to start with. I finally pulled into a quick mart type of place to decide what to do (this was before we both had cells!). A very nice lady walked over to my car and said “Honey, you don’t belong around here. You’d bette go on.” So I did!
sunriseiz(at)yahoo(dot) com
When I was pregnant and newly married my hubby and I had 2 paper routes.
We’d bought a truck (stick shift) for me to do one of the routes. I’d driven a stick all of four times by the first night I headed out on the route.
Sure enough one of the boxes was on a monster hill and I got stuck. I was crying and swearing as I tried for 30 minutes to get off the danged hill.
FINALLY I get it started and I’m so flustered that I somehow get off the route in a section of Denver that I don’t know at all.
It’s 2 am, I’m behind schedule and my face is all puffy from crying.
I spend 20 more minutes trying to find my way back and not succeeding.
Then I whip out the cell, call the hubby and he carefully and calmly guides me back to the route.
Oh the crazy things we do in that first year!
bebemiqui82(at)yahoo(dot)com
my husband and i were visiting family in arizona. we were headed out of town and decided to let my brother give us directions. i guess there were just too many “turn left”s and “turn right”s cause i got really confused and ended up getting us completely lost. i was driving and just kept saying “i’m just gonna find a freeway”. well every road that i took led us further out or to a dead end. something that should have taken us 20 minutes took us 3 hours. i was so embarrassed and did not want to mention anything to my brother.
I’m actually pretty good with directions. I have a mental bread crumb trail and can easily find my way back wherever I have traveled. My husband, however, is the complete opposite. He could definitely benefit from a Magellan GPS unit. I hate how he asks for directions to the same places over and over again. My favorite is that he still gets lost heading to our own house. We recently were driving our kids home in separate cars, and the kids were pretending it was a race to see who could get there first (obeying all speed limits of course). He would have won…if he hadn’t turned into the neighborhood next to ours instead of our own neighborhood! My daughter was so mad at him.
Every single time my husband and I go on vacation, we inevitably get lost and in a fight.
Even with Mapquest directions, sometimes it is just hard to get!!
I don’t just have 1 story to tell about lacking a sense of direction and getting lost – rather, it is the story of my life! My husband can navigate “in his head” on how to get from 1 place to another. I cannot do that unless it is some place I go frequently. My husband of 31 years has learned to ask if I know how to get to some place new. He still can’t quite fathom how I am so lacking in directional skills! When we go on a long driving vacation, I get rather uneasy. If something happened to my husband – a serious illness perhaps – I am never confident I could get us home from a distant place. If I make a wrong turn, I usually have to drive around wandering rather aimlessly until I recognize a familiar handmark. (You can see how this would be a problem in a strange town!) I use Map Quest a lot, but sometimes the directions are not great, you have to keep looking at the paper, and you’re stuck if you make a wrong turn. A GPS system sounds like a directionless driver’s dream come true: a non-judgemental, very patient, always there when you need it driving directions guru!
Nancy
allibrary [at] aol [dot] com
I was supposed to pick up my husband at the airport at 9 pm…(a half hr away) 4 hrs later I arrived after veering to the right on the highway and ending up in a town way south of us . Took me awhile to figure out how to get to the airport from there.
Here’s a little funny….when I first got my license I got lost going to the grocery store…..I have absolutely NO scense of direction. As for my worst lost story…..so many to choose from…After work one afternoon I was driving to Myrtle Beach and ended up in North Carolina. When I was taking an evening course at USC I ended up in Newberry one night which is hours away from my house. UGH! The list goes on and on. Thanks!
What a fabulous giveaway!
So I don’t have just one lost story,I have so many. We moved to a very big city six years ago and it took me 5 years to get comfortable driving around.
One of my worst experiences was mapping out my whole route on map quest before I left for downtown. But then I came to the road I wanted to take and it was detoured. I ended up driving through the ghetto at 11p.m. at night with scary people making hand gestures at my car, sewers complete without billowing steam coming out of them and bums laying on the sidewalks everywhere. I thought I’d get car jacked or shot at for sure.
My best friend and I drove from Michigan to New York a few years ago to see a Dave Matthews concert. When we got to NY, we got lost in Buffalo and we narrowly missed the concert!!!! We stopped at every gas station we could find to ask them how to get to the stadium. We felt to stupid but we were grateful that we didn’t miss the concert! THANKS for this awesome giveaway!
newmommyin08@yahoo.com
I got lost going to an appointment so
I exited off the highway turning left under the highway onto a one-way road into two lanes of on-coming traffic!! Both lanes just stopped and everyone started honking at me. All I could do was turning very quickly to the left thinking this was an exit….uh nooooooooo it was another one-way and I was nose to nose with an SUV! The lady just kept raising her hands saying “what the _____ are you doing?” There was just enough space for me to back up and turn about 50 times to get turned around.
Lets just say I did not go to the appointment and I had to call my husband just to get directions to get home because I was so shaken up!!
I don’t usually get so lost that I can’t find my way back to a place I recognize. I do however get turned around and end up getting really mad, frustrated, and end up giving my car a beating LOL. The last time I got turned around was just yesterday. It was raining and I wasn’t really thinking clearly, foggy head you could say. I went passed the exit I needed. By about 12 minutes, before I realized it. By that time I was all turned around. I need a Magellan simply to be there to remind me when my exit is coming up next
ckbruce@ymail.com
Once I offered to take a blind friend home from church. I wasn’t too familiar with the part of town where he lived, and for obvious reasons he wasn’t either. We did get lost, but eventually found our way to his house.
john[dot]michelle[dot]harrod[at]comcast[dot]net.
I was driving in Indy to our new church from my new job and got hopelessly lost downtown. It was a bit scary and I totally missed the service that I was supposed to be at. Eventually I found my way there, but it took much, much longer than it needed to. =)
mccammacks(at)sbcglobal(dot)net
I’ve gotten lost several time. It always seems to happen when it is dark, and I hate to drive in the dark! Anyways, I was trying to get to a friend of a friends house for a party, and I took several wrong turns, and couldn’t ever find her house, so I ended up just going home and missing out on an awesome party!
My husband and I were visiting Nashville this summer. Our hotel was about 20 miles from downtown. So we headed out after having a casual breakfast. We got so turned around and of course the car we rented didn’t have a compass in it, and we mistakenly left our atlas in the hotel room. Since it was about noon, we couldn’t even figure out what direction by the sun! haha! Finally stopped at a local gas station and got some directions from a helpful clerk! Even though we took a few wrong turns before seeking some help, we did find a great shopping center!
sweetstuffy@hotmail.com
I had a doctor’s appointment in an unfamiliar part of town. I got so lost I didn’t know what to do. I pulled over and called my husband crying. I gave him the streets I was on and he not only called to let the doctor’s office know, he drove out and found me. I don’t know what I would have done if I could not have gotten ahold of him. Now I am so nervous about finding my way new places. I get horrible anxiety. I would love a GPS unit to relieve my driving anxiety from now on.
Years ago, a friend and I flew into Baltimore, Maryland and rented a car with the purpose of drivng from Baltimore to Buffalo, NY. We’d never been anywhere near the East Coast, but we confidently plotted our course on our map and set off in the tiny Geo Metro we were piloting. According to our calculations, we’d be in Buffalo within 3 or 4 hours . . . Twenty-seven hours and several tanks of gas later, we rolled into Buffalo! Not only did we badly underestimate the length of our trip, we also got horribly lost driving at night. We were young and foolish girls and we were really lucky nothing else happened to us that night, but it was a lesson learned!
belinda_streak(at)hotmail(dot)com
Anytime I go any place at all not in my usual spots, I will get lost. I have NO sense of direction. I probably get seriously lost (45 minutes or more) at least once a month if not more. One of the worst was when I had driven 7 hours for a job interview to a small town. I kept looking for the place I was supposed to be at 8 am for an interview. I spent 5 hours looking for the location. (Did I mention my 60 year old mother and 7 month old baby were with me?) Anyway, I stopped and asked for directions so many times. I couldn’t find any road signs. Apparently, its the norm for the teens to take the street signs. FINALLY I found out how to get to my destination…
My family was going to a family reunion out of state. We thought we arrived at our destination. A picnic at a park. We all introduced ourselves. We even started to eat. We didn’t recognize anyone. It finally dawned on us we had the wrong family reunion. We did get a police escort to the correct reunion. We never laughed so hard.
I got lost after dropping my sister and her kids off at the Phila Interntl Airport.
My elderly Dad was following me in his car as we were going to drop off the rental car I was driving and no longer needed.
So we got to the airport okay and then circled around looking for the car rental drop off area. Saw the signs, but couldn’t get to it because of construction.
Do you know how many times I circled that stupid airport trying to get over? My poor dad had no clue what I was doing and I couldn’t call him as he can’t hear well enough to answer the cell phone.
I felt a bit like Chevy Chase in the National lampoon Eurpoean Tour when he kept circling and circling.
Somehow, I found the rental car place and we managed to get out of that airport!
I have a feeling a GPS would have made my trip less embarassing.
Nancy in HI
NHaitsuka@aol.com
We love to travel by car and this would keep us on track to our destination.
We just got lost a few weeks ago going to my grandma’s funeral. I thought my hubby knew where we were going since we had been there a number of times over the last 11 years.
I was playing my son’s DS and not paying a bit of attention. Well, when I finally looked up I realized we were an hour past where we should have gotten off the interstate. It took us 7 hours to get to our destination that is usually a 4 hour trip! Gotta love traveling the old fashioned way, by memory! 
We could really use this! Thanks for the chance.
We were headed to a campground in the middle of nowhere. We thought we knew where we were but ended up getting lost. We turned down a street that had workers on it. We asked if we could go through and they said yes. We started going when we heard this horrible rattling sound. Turns out they were retaring the road and adding new gravel. We finally made it to our campgrounds which was only a few roads over but the car was completely covered with fresh tar that we continued to drop all over the campgrounds. It was horrible being lost and then the tar on top of it.
Our GPS just bit the dust. This would be so handy to have when navigating garage sales! Thanks for the awesome (as always) giveaway, Christine!
Linsey
I’m always getting lost. I think my family talks more of the time back when I was in my early days of driving. I was coming back at night from a town only an hour away. I took the wrong exit. I didn’t stop for instructions. It ended up into a 4 hour trip. Boy did I take the wrong way. When I finally seen a sign saying I was going the right way boy was I relieved. I still have to call one of my brother or sisters to help direct me out of the bigger citys, everytime they put a detour in. My husband now is teaching me to stop and ask. Please enter me, thank you
My worst lost story was from a trip a friend and I were taking from upstate NY to Detroit. She had me look for a particular town name on the map. I was impressed with myself for being able to find it, mapreading not one of my better skills. We traveled hours out of our way… I found had the right town! But it happened to be in Canada, instead of on the US side of the border.
I was trying to visit a relative in the midwest when I turned from the highway to a series of country roads. Needless to say, after a couple of miles all the roads started to look alike, with corn fields all looking the same and no difference at all the intersections. It took over an hour to find my way back to the highway. Eventualy I had my relative meet me and I followed him back to the house.
My hubby is far more directionally challenged than me. Although, I do print out Google Maps for everywhere I go LOL! This would definitely help me save on paper.
Hubby is constantly getting lost so I have become his GPS to help guide him in the right direction and avoid heavy traffic around town. He says the one flaw with his GPS (me) is that there is no off button. Hey – wait a minute…
Hope I win and I would wrap it up for him and tell him it’s a giant OFF switch for his current GPS.
I was working as a case manager and new to the philly area. Somehow, I took a wrong turn and ended up over the bridge to NJ. I drove 3 hours in circles before finding my way back
was in austin trying to get to daughter’s house, missed exit from the toll road and went in a circle 3 times, each time having to pay the toll again.
Last year we went to rural Minnesota to rent a cottage on a lake with our 5 kids. I went to the grocery store and forgot my cell phone. I am “directionally challenged”, and it took me over an hour to find my way back to the cottage. At one point I was on this two-track road with no way to turn around. All I could think was “I’m gonna die in po-dunk-ville”!!!
loriloomis[at]sbcglobal[dot]net
A friend gave me the address for a childrens birthday party that was supposed to be in one of the places where they have blow up jumpy toys. She said the parking was in the back and to come in the back door. I went to the address she gave me, got my 5 year old out of the car, and walked through the back door into a strip club.
Thankfully there was a curtain behind the bouncer who was guarding the door and im sure didnt believe my story and thought I was the worst mother alive!
Turns out there is an OAK street and an OAKE street. She forgot to mention that!
My worst lost experience was when I was a young reporter — about 23 — and got lost in East St. Louis on the way home from an interview. I knew it was a dangerous area so I was speeding to get of town. Cops pulled me over and ARRESTED me for speeding. I spent several hours in a holding cell until my new boyfriend (now my DH) bailed me out.
email: kristina.sauerwein@sbcglobal.net
my boyfriend and i drove his sister somewhere ten minutes away, and managed to get lost for two hours on the way back. it was so terrible, we had no idea where we were and the streets were going like 72nd, 89th and then 105th. that’s brooklyn for you!
Traveling the backroads of KY in our motor home, we stopped to dine in a medium-sized town (forget the name, probably just as well) and literally could not get out of the town. Every road we followed led us back into the town. Asked directions at gas stations three times before finally escaping.
great site
I am always getting lost…I do the same and call various people to get me out of a bind. One time, on one of these various cell calls to a friend, I got into a tiny little fender bender with the local police…luckily, I was so hugely pregnant, he let me go.
My Mom and I were on our way from our home in WV to Duke University for one of her many medical appointments. I knew as soon as I missed my turn that I was going wrong, but Mom managed to convince me we were going right. She kept telling me she remembered the landmarks as we passed. Finally when I saw a sign showing “Radford, VA” I knew for sure I was going the wrong direction. When I turned around and got back on track, Mom admitted she remembered all the landmarks because she and my sister had made the same mistake on an earlier trip! After that, I stopped listening to Mom, because I learned her sense of direction was even worse than mine – which is absolutely terrible!
guysrose at aol dot com
I drove up to Montreal to a concert with my boyfriend in college and on our way back we got lost under the highway system there, ending up first in a scary industrial area with no signs and then in an Iranian district where the only person that we found to help us was a cab driver who didn’t speak English or French. We made it, but it was an adventure.
My favorite GPS story is from the show The Office where Michael drives into a lake because the GPS tells him to! CLASSIC!
My husband and I were on our way from Texas to his sisters house in Nashville. We were using a map and “thought” we found a shortcut that would get us there faster. We ended up turned so turned around and lost. We knew we were heading completely the wrong when when we saw a sign that said we were heading to Birmingham, AL! We had to call and get directions to their house. In our defense, she lives in a new suburb south of Nashville and her street address wasn’t even recognized by the GPS on my phone. The GPS wanted to take us all the way over near Chatanooga! So at least I knew better than to follow those directions!
I hope I win! I get lost walking around parking lots!
mrchip4 at gmail dot com
It is hard to admit that I get lost especally publicly like this
When I was a teenager, I was on a bowling travel league. We left the bowling alley in Merrti Island at 9:00 to head home to Palm Bay (about 40 minutes away). We took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in Tampa (some 3 hours away from home). By now, it was clost to midnight and needless to say, we got lost in Tampa and we were very hungry. We had to chose between eating and getting gas because we had very little money. We chose gas and finally somehow found our way home around 10:00 a.m. the next morning. My mom had called the police looking for me and was crying frantically when I got home. In my time of lostness, I had forgotten to call her to let her know I was lost. By the way, we were running on fumes when we finally made it home. Whew!
oh my…..i have so many lost stories i could tell…the dummest is getting on hwy 101 going the wrong direction when i lived in seaside…that is just how bad my sense of direction is. and then a few weeks ago i was trying to get from a friend’s house to my school…just 3 turns and i managed to screw it up…in the end had to get on the freeway and just go the way i go when i go from my house….just irks me!
i added you to my google reader too
I’m lost every time I get out an elevator. I need a machine to tell me which way to turn before the doors open. Will this do that?
Just recently my DH got me a type of GPs that didn’t require a monthly fee for service. We were going to Biloxi, MS, and tried to use the GPS. While it got us to our hotel, we tried to find a place to eat. We would arrive at the location to nothing there. While we were lost as ever, it was sad to realize that it hadn’t been updated, and that these were placed that Katrina took away. We ended up heading back towards our hotel and opted to stay close to there after that!
My best lost story involves my best friend, Cindy. She got lost going from the local hospital to a house she had just recently rented. She thought she would take the gravel roads as a short cut. That short cut was an hour long trip which would normally take 10 minutes. She is notorious for getting lost. I think this would make a great gift for her.
I subscribed to your feed.
I was using google maps to visit a friend but I’m not very good with right and left, so when it told me to turn right, I turned left. I was lost for an hour before I figured out I’d taken a wrong turn.
oewiz@yahoo.com
We were traveling form Ohio to Arizona (long trip!). Some how my DH made a wrong turn and we ended up in ST. Louis. Funny cause we were supposed to be on 40W. any way when he woke me up I was staring at the arch. Talk about confused. We were almost out of gas and it was 3:00 am. I had clue as to where anything is in St Louis. We ended up in an area that looked like something from Gotham city nothing open and no one in site (that may have been a good thing). Thank goodness that our gas like gives up several miles before the sputter. It took us about and hour to stop going in circles. I guess the good thing is I learned to do the night time driving. LOL
I moved 10 hours a way from home to go to college. So i didn’t get to come home much. Well one of my first trips home, i picked up a high school friend a few hours from me, and home we headed. Well, we decided to stop and grab something to eat, were getting back up on the road, and i am sure we were doing some talking (two 19 year old girls, lots of talking), well we kept talking till we noticed a huge sign that said welcome to Oklahoma…which wouldn’t be so bad, but we were in texas when we started and needed to still be in texas, Oklahoma was not on our path…OOOPS..1 hour away from were we ate, we had to turn around and head back home. I still pass were those two roads meet and were we made the wrong turn and have no idea how we did it.
So my friends and I set out on a trip to Las Vegas from Phoenix to go to a wedding. We got about half way and there is a point we need to turn to get to a different Interstate. Instead the majority of the car decided that was the wrong way and we needed to continue strait. Well about 30 minutes later we realized we were not getting to Vegas. So we turned around. When we got back to what we thought was the right way, only to found out we turned the wrong way AGAIN and ended up on the same road to Los Angeles not Vegas. Finally the third time was the charm. Needless to say it took about 2 1/2 hours extra to get to Vegas.
I got in from Hawaii today and while I was there I rented a car. I spent a lot of time getting lost because the street signs are hard to find and if you can find the street signs and you aren’t from around there they are hard to pronounce! By the second day of driving in circles and wasting time being lost instead of seeing paradise I swore to myself that the next time I WILL have a GPS system!! Thank you for the opportunity to win and to find my way-good luck everyone, Jeff
Hi. The case when I was terribly lost was when my Dad and I went to pick up mushrooms in the local forest. We were supposed to keep distance from one another in order to cover more distance in our search for mushrooms. I got taken away by the possibility… When I echoed my Dad and heard nothing in return, I realized I was lost. Dad found me in an hour later, but for me that hour lasted eternity.
My best lost story is when my husband and I were about 19. We decided to go camping with some friends. We did not have a map or a clue about where we were trying to go. We ended up spending the night in my car. Did I mention that my car at that time was just a little Nissan Sentra? Well anyways, my husband is 6’2″. Needless to say it was a very cold and a sleepless night. The next day, we realized that we were less than 5 miles from the campsite. It turned out really nice and we enjoyed the rest of our weekend.
I also subscribed to your feed. Thanks for the great giveaway.
I could tell so many horror stories of my getting lost! I live in GA and have to drive to Atlanta sometimes and I could get lost in an elevator, OK? LOL, not a pretty picture. My worst though was when I had to go to Atlanta for an interview. After printing up directions and driving for an hour and then calling the person because I came to a toll booth that was never mentioned, I was told I had gone too far and to turn around. Well, if you get off an exit in downtown Atlanta that does not get right back on the interstate, you’re going to be wondering around the wrong way on one-way streets and taking your life into your own hands. Needless to say, I did not turn around. As soon as I saw a sign that said “20 East”, I jumped on it because I knew that way was home! I called the interviewer to let her know what happened and said, “Don’t worry, one of these I’ll get a GPS!” LOL
I went to a rabbit show with my dad in Pennsylvania (we live in central NY) a couple of years ago. Two things to know about my dad: 1) he loves to take back roads and 2) he would drive around in circles before admitting he was lost – but I guess that’s any guy! Needless to say, we ended up very lost on a rural back road. I think I’ve seen too many slasher movies, so I was freaking out! It was getting dark out…I was worried that we would be there forever, and we had 15 bunnies in the back of the van! Finally, my dad found someone and asked for directions. I was so glad he did it for my sake, and we got home unscathed. That was a scary time for me!
And I’m a subscriber!
when i was meeting with my then date (now dh) in san francisco which was 2 hours away from where i was going to school i got lost and was LATE. it was stressfull luckily he waited and it turned out fine, can you imagine before the days of cell phones too!
nsurja(at)hotmail(dot)com
subscribed, thanks
nsurja(at)hotmail(dot)com
when i was young my family went on long road trips on one we went on with just our mom we had no cell phone and got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. very scary because my mom didn't know how to change a tire & had no way of contacting anyone for help. luckily a nice person stopped to help. after that we purchased a cell phone, learned how to change tires and got AAA. i have been wanting to buy a gps as well.
Let me preface this by saying it happend When my sister and I were both young and stupid. She was working in Honduras and I went to visit her. We rented a pickup to drive across most of the country. We ended up getting really lost PLUS at the same time the battery on the truck started to leak/die out and we were basically in the middle of no where. When I think back about it now, we should have been a lot more scared than we were!
I got all turned around going to a job interview. I ended up at a small technical college walking around in a fog. I wasn’t even at the right building. When I finally found the correct building (down the street) I was 45 minutes late. Since I was almost done with college I knew I needed practice interviewing so I went anyways.
egreca (at) hotmail {dot} com
I have no sense of direction what so ever. I get lost pretty much wherever I go. I always end up going to wrong way or getting off on a wrong exit. I need a GPS so I can get my children to and from activities without being late. jachodnett@gmail.com
cdrury@gmail.com
I was going to a job interview and got lost in Washington DC – not only did I miss the interview but ended up running into a taxi becasue I was so stressed – did I say it was raining and I got drenched and had to wait three hours for a policeman to come!!!
Subscribed to feed.
amy in kamloops @ gmail. com
I was asked to pick up my grandsons from the sitters. I had only been there once before. I went to pick them up and could not find the street. I did not have a cell phone and kept driving through neighborhoods trying to find it. I started praying and praying and then I turned a corner and there it was. What a blessing. I could have used this!!
I have many a story from the past two months. We just moved North from the South..near a metropolitan area..and we are CONSTANTLY getting lost! My husband swears he’s a map expert, but let me tell you, we get lost EVERYWHERE we go…even WITH a map..so we’re both pretty pathetic that way. Hopefully one day we’ll actually get to where we need to be on time. LOL Thanks for allowing me to share. abrockelman73@yahoo.com
Our family was new to the Dallas/Ft Worth area…had just moved into our house the day before…and my husband sent me off to rent a dolly from Uhaul. My son (only one at the time) was 8 months old, and I was still nursing full time. (Full time to him meant every 1.5 to 2 hours!) I was about halfway through my nursing cycle, so armed with directions and thinking I had plenty of time to get to Uhaul and back, I set out on my very first trip away from the house…alone. I had moved from a relatively small town with no access roads and no highways over 3 lanes. So once I hit the highway in DFW, my knuckles turned white. As I approached my exit, I could see Uhaul to my left…however, once I exited, I could not for the life of me figure out how to get to it. There it was…it’s orange sign glaring at me. I finally found what I thought was a road that would lead me right there…only, it led me right PAST onto another highway that I had never heard of with no way to turn around. I spent the next half hour to 45 minutes trying to figure out how to get to the Uhaul store. Oh, did I forget to mention that I hadn’t taken my cell phone with me??? An hour and a half after I left the house, I pulled back up, tears streaming down my face and ACHING to feed my baby…if you know what I mean! Thankfully, I’ve learned a little more about DFW highways. After 3 years, though, it’s still such a big city, and growing, that I can’t say that was the only time I’ve been lost!
When We had to evacuate for Hurricane Ivan 4 years ago I went down to Orlando to see my brother. I and three children in a van driving late at night and took the wrong exit and almost ended up in Tampa. Three o’clock in the morning crying and scared I pulled up to a turnpike toll booth told the lady I was lost. She could barely speak English and just handed me a map. I sure could have used a GPS system! Finally I found a convienent store in the middle of the boonies and some kind generous man had me follow him all the way to Orlando. Never did he ask for anything, let alone the money I was trying to give him for his time and gas. I guess there are Angels out there.
Hubs and I went to Plano, TX because we were considering a move there. I had an interview with a school district but was really early (I wanted to make sure I got there in plenty of time since I wasn’t familiar with the area). I decided to drive around the neighborhood to kill time. I’m generally not bad with directions (Hubs is the one who always gets lost). But I could not find my way back to the school. I was so worried I wouldn’t find it or would be really late. Luckily I was able to find my way back in time!
I just subscribed to your feed too.
Thanks!
This is embarassing to admit but after living away from my home town (of 22 years) for a few years (still going back for visits mind you) I got lost driving to my friends house for her bridal shower. Now it didn’t take me to long to figure out my wrong turn and get back on track, but come on who gets lost going somewhere they had been like a million times!
Well I just moved to a new area and know where nothing is.. So one day my daughter and I thought we would explore and look around! Well we got lost! She is 5 and she kept telling me I am going the wrong way and we should have brought a map and so on. SHe was acting like the adult while I was in the drivers seat panicking! I hate getting lost and not knowing my way around. Long story short we found our way home thanks to my daughter and I think I may take my 5 year olds advice and use a map, lol.
I would love one of those new inventions that help you find your way! I need one! haha.
PS- I subsribed to your feed! Love it!
In June, our family traveled from SC to Ft Bennning for my little brother’s graduation from Basic Training. Our hotel was about 5 minutes from the base, which was awesome. After the ceremony, we were going back to the hotel. We, for reasons I have not yet determined, decided to follow my mom and her husband out. Though it was his first time there, my mother’s hubby was sure he knew a “short cut.”
30 minutes later, we’d passed all sorts of things, a hospital, a riding trial, a country club-but we had not left the base. Finally, we encountered an area 51 type place. I was terrified. I did a u-turn and found my own way off base.
When we went to San Francisco for my fingerprinting in INS and we’re just using pinted directions. It was so hard because it was our first time drivng around in San Francisco. We have to turn around many times before we found the INs office which is only in Broadway. I bet it could have been very easy and less stressful if we have this GPS guide.
mginah_lp@yahoo.com
I just moved to Kansas City and I am totally not a city girl. I was trying to get home and went the wrong direction on the right highway and ended up in downtown. Scary since I had my two boys with me. Well I did a couple turns and went the wrong way on a one way street a couple times, and I saw this pair of motorcycle cops sitting under the bridge of the highway I went the wrong direction on. So I asked them how to get back on there cause I assumed I needed to go further into downtown, but he told me to just go up to the light and do a U turn. I never thought a cop would tell me to do that. So I did it right in front of him and eventually got home.
My husband keeps joking that I need GPS cause I have such bad sense of direction and its not getting better the longer we live here.
soccermom59 at gmail dot com
Thanks!
I’m a subscriber too! Thanks!
The first day I had my drivers license, I was driving around and got lost in center city Allentown, Pennsylvania. It took 3 hours to find my way out of this random city, I really need this, I am terrible with directions!!!
I AM probably the only person in the world that hates going on vacation..because everytime we go my hub gets us lost and we end up driving around for hours on end and i have a panic attack..i swear we have not gone anywhere in 5 years because of that fact
My husband and I were on our way to California and were driving through Arizona. I found a “shortcut” on the map. It was a smaller road (not a highway), but it was definitely a shorter route. Well, by the time we drove up a mountain or two, and drove through the same town about 7 times on switchback roads, and hit the other side of the mountain to head down with the sun glaring right in our eyes, it definitely was not quicker. It was the scenic route however. Luckily he was able to laugh about it later.
My Friend and i decided to make a “suprise” visit to one of our old Highschool friends living in Birmingham, Alabama.No Cellphone with us only a yahoo map we printed out really quick and off we drove.Well, we took the wrong Exit and ended up in a very bad part of the Town.Some of the Streets we drove along were littered with Trash ,nasty and we were kinda expecting to see dead person on the side – yep it was scary! We rolled our Windows up and locked the Doors and just hoping and praying to find our way back to the highway .After 30 Minutes ( it sure felt like 30 hours)driving around we finally seen a Police Car in front of Coffee Shop so we parked right beside the cruiser and waited for the cop . We didnt have to wait long and a female cop came out ,we explained our situation and she told us to follow her and got us back to the highway. Long Story made short – we drove back home and never made a “suprise”visit to anybody anymore.
I am really bad with directions. I go to garage sales every weekend. I was using directions printed from mapquest and the directions function on my iphone, and I still couldn’t find the sale. I really wanted to go to it too!
We went on an early color tour and Fall festival today and I was trying to read the map for My Husband and He did not believe the way I said to go so after 20 years I let Him decide We got misplaced going East when We should have gone West> smile
First, there is a chance that this can save my marriage…directions are always a sore spot between me and hubby.
A couple of months ago we were staying at a cabin for the weekend owned by some friends of ours. They had recommended having dinner at a indian casino about 20 minutes or so down the road. My hubby thought he knew a shortcut (isn’t that the way it always begns??). Thank goodness we had a full tank before we began the drive because we drove in pitch dark over a very steep mountain, with no traffic…that turned into a dirt road (by this time I had no cell phone service)…that ended up going by a very remote power plant….after an hour and a half we came across a small little “biker bar” stopped for directions (after the bartender asked how we got there…and laughed at us) we found out it was another 2 hours to get back to the cabin. Needless to say it was a very quiet ride to the cabin,and when we finally got there we had soup for dinner.
While I was in school, I worked weekends taking reports from customers of national company in my area. Desperate for money, I accepted assignments in a city out of state when someone else quit. There I was driving in a totally unfamiliar city on a strange road that ringed the town. I kept looking at the map on my passenger seat every chance I got. But I took one chance too many… the car in front of me stopped and rammed into it. I would have saved a lot of time and tension if I had had a Magellan in those lean school days!
This past spring my daughter and I went past the exit we needed to get to a bypass for the last bit of the ride home from her university and there was no exit for 25 minutes so we just kept on going. When we got off, we thought we would try to wing it and get back on local and smaller roads. Not a good idea. We got so tangled up in a mess and had to stop for directions four times before we finally got to a place we recognized and could get home. It was pretty scary since it was getting dark and we were in completely unfamiliar territory.
doot65{at}comcast[dot]net
Elizabeth
Last year while we vacationed in SAn Diego we decided to go down to Mexico. When we got down to Escinada, hubby was driving down a major street when low and behold I see a one way street sign sign and we were on the wrong way. I was scared to death because all along the way were Mexican police with big rifles I could not wait to get out of that country and then diving to the border crossing we got lost in a little village in the dark by the time we got to the crossing again we got lost and kept going into circles we were close but could not find the right road to get the crossing We need a Magellan
Bonnie in FL
blday50@gmail.com
On a return trip from NJ back to NY my husband and I decided to visit historical Philadelphia. It seemed the entire city was under construction, with many detours and one-way streets. After our sight-seeing we weaved our way back to the highway. Naturally I was reading the map. At our first toll booth I asked the attendant how to get back onto the PA turnpike. To which she replied “Why honey, that’s in Pennsylvania….you’re in NJ.” At that point my husband pulled over, put the car in park looked at me and said “We aren’t moving until you figure out where we are.”
get your feed!
I’m a guy, COLLECTIVELY WE DON’T GET LOST! Seriously, I can never say that I’ve ever felt lost outside of on a golf course not knowing where the next tee is. That’s about the only time I get a feeling of lost, never driving, even put me in a new city and I never get that “lost” feeling as I do between holes on a golf course
I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I decided to branch out and agreed to meet a friend for lunch in Center city. Boy how Carrie of me ( Sex in the City) and certainly not typical of me!
I was able to meet my friend and enjoy a nice lunch. On the way back home I was so lost due to one way streets and people not letting me in to turn that after an hour of driving endlessly around I began to look for anyone with NJ license plates so I could follow them to the bridge ( even if they were not going directly home to NJ!)
I still hesitate doing things in the city that I would otherwise love to do such as going to the zoo with my kids etc.
I was driving with my girls cross country we were moving from Alaska to Florida- yes, just me and the girls and way before the days of portable dvd players.
We had directions from MapQuest but they were not very good at all and my head spins when people will tell me all this 3.7 miles north then east on… POOF it explodes so literally, every time we stopped for gas, food, whatever when I was leaving I’d tell someone I’m going to Florida, do I make a left or a right out of the parking lot. Even when they tried to be helpful and show me maps I was like umm thanks I don’t even knoww which way is east now please, left or right?
We got there (in record time) met some great people along the way and our “road trips” are some of the little divas’ favorite memories. We are so hoping for another one soon.
I was lost on dark and icy mountain road. At one point I was stuck between two hills and couldn’t go either way because of the ice. I found a house with two men in it. Neither of them had any legs, but they managed to tow my car over a hill and told me how to get home.
I don’t have a story..
Living in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago, I never ventured into the city until I had to visit my father in the hospital. Getting there was no problem, but getting home….. I saw a street with a familiar name and decided if I took that, I’d eventually find surroundings I knew. Hah, not even close. I found myself driving aimlessly in Chicago for what seemed like forever. Eventually I did find my way home, but have been afraid to go anywhere now for fear of getting lost again.
one time i got REALLY lost looking for this party in LA. Mapquest got the directions wrong and i was driving around for hours trying to find this house, afraid that i would get shot. And i didn’t want to call my mom because i was way too embarrassed because i had made a big deal that i wouldn’t get lost and got into a big fight, i finally found the house and was like 2 hours late, i still had fun at the party!
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