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WARNING: This was written approximately 30 minutes after the events had finally concluded. I have still not slept. I am about to. This has not been proofread and probably is the most poorly written anything I've ever done ever. You've been warned.
Also it's pretty long.
So.
About today.
My parents live in Germany. I live in Florida. My grandparents live in Florida (about 30 minutes away). My parents want to get my grandparents gift certificates to 2 good restaurants in the area (one Greek and the other Polish). So I take 436 and I'm on it for about 30 minutes, turn onto 434 and turn into the restaurant parking lot. I buy a $30 gift card and promptly leave. I then sit in my car, open my iPod and check the map (it's not an iPhone, so the only part of the map that it can display is the part I loaded when I had an internet connection). I mentally acknowledge the route, and star the car.
So I'm heading down 434 again, pass the exit onto i4 east and continue down 434 until I can find highway 17/92. There's a lot of traffic and I've never been down this road before. Suddenly I realize that I'm in the right-most left turn only lane, and the roads are too congested for me to get over. "Okay," I think, "I'll just get on i4 and take the first exit and turn around. No problem at all." Naturally, the first exit is 15 minutes down the road (traveling at about 70 mph, so about 17 miles down i4). Finally, I find an exit and turn off, I turn a ways down another road before I realize I'm headed in the wrong direction, turn around again, and try to retrace my steps.
I should mention at this point that I moved here from Tallahassee about 2 months ago, so I am not familiar with any of these areas at all.
Anyway, after about 20 minutes, I find i4 again. I don't see my city (or Orlando, the city directly adjacent) on any of the exit signs. "Surely Orlando would be on the sign," I think. "I mean, it's fuckin' Orlando." So I keep driving.
And I keep driving.
And I keep driving.
Until I finally get to a point where I think, "okay I have DEFINITELY passed my exit." I'm in some fuckin' boondoggles in the middle of fuckin' nowhere now. I have no idea where I am and don't recognize the names of any cities, much less the streets. But I DO have my trusty iPod! With google maps! But again, it's an iPod. Not an iPhone. So I need WiFi.
So I start looking around for a Starbucks or McDonald's or anything with WiFi. I'm going to go ahead and cut out the details of this particular portion and just say: I didn't find a fuckin' thing. There was a McDonald's but it wanted me to pay like $3 for an hour of internet. At first I refused, but after finding no other source of internet, I begrudgingly returned to the greasehouse (that's McDonald's) and promptly entered my debit card information so that I could get ripped off for what would end up being like 3 minutes of internet.
There is a server error.
No internet here.
Awesome.
So I look over the map some more. It basically maps out the last 20% of my trip, so I start looking for some clues, but can't find a damn thing. All I know is that I need to be going pretty much directly south.
So I drive around for a while longer until I find a gas station. I stop to see if there is WiFi. There is not. So I basically just sit there for a while, trying to figure out what to do. I look at the map for a while longer, trying to look for any streets I'd seen around that area. Finally I walk into the gas station's store and ask the guy for directions. He doesn't fuckin' know where to go. Useless bastard.
So I get ready to leave when a Thought occurs to me: I know I need to be going south, but that doesn't help because I don't know what direction I'm headed.
So I buy one of those cheap ass plastic compasses.
And I head South.
I finally get to a street that I recognize from the map and FINALLY find 17/92. Of course I'm about 15 miles more north than I want to be, but at least I'm on the right road now. So I start looking for this Polish Restaurant, which is supposed to be right on 17/92, and the best part is that it's already marked on my map. So I go there. I see nothing. I keep looking. I still see nothing. I turn into the street that seems to be the only place left that the restaurant could be. I do remember that the building number is 750, but the building numbers progress in the most ridiculous, retarded, and nonsensical way possible. Building 701 is directly to my right. Then building 705 for some reason. Like they just skipped a couple or something. So I turn right. Suddenly the building numbers have jumped to 735. The building numbers to my left have started. They start at 700. I take an immediate right. Suddenly the building numbers have magically jumped to 748. I'm almost there! One more! Then I take another left (same building, different side), and suddenly the numbers are 700. I don't know who the fuck numbered these buildings but I'm guessing he didn't do too well in preschool math.
So I drive around for another 40 fuckin' minutes. Keep going up and down all the streets in that area around building number 748 but can't find shit. So I find another mcdonald's, and this time, it actually has WiFi. I am saved! So I look up the address of the place again. It tells me to go where I JUST fuckin' was. So I'm starting to think the fucking place doesn't exist. After about an hour, I just give up and start heading south on 17-92 (toward home). At this point, I'm pretty frustrated. I have pretty much ceased to care about anything. Then I see it. Right there, on my right.
The restaurant. It was a magnificent sight. Though I was a bit pissed that I found it after wasting all my time looking for it and then giving up, I was much happier to have actually found it. So I get the gift certificate, and all seems well. But, curious, I stop and ask what the address is, since I was looking up and down N Highway Rd (the address that was given to me) and rechecked there multiple times. He replies, "S Highway Rd."
"Oh. Okay well thanks." I say it calmly, but..
inside I'm screaming.
It's 5:30pm now. I woke up at 1 in the morning (my sleep schedule is all bassackwards).
I am exhausted.
It took me 6 hours. But I did it.
I now have 2 $30 gift cards that someone else will use.
That fuckin' restaurant's food had better be exquisite.
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Hahaha... kids these days... drive around for hours while lost trying to find WiFi rather than asking people for directions  Good stuff.
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hahaha poor you 
i guess the thing with the numbers of the houses is because if there is open space between them its already someones piece of land, just without a house. at least thats how it works here
(somehow i waited for a "and then i found ten bucks" in there xD)
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On December 23 2010 07:37 aike wrote:Hahaha... kids these days... drive around for hours while lost trying to find WiFi rather than asking people for directions Good stuff.
Screw WiFi. I had a compass and a fifth of a map!
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ROFL
Buy an Android.
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On December 23 2010 07:42 LazyMacro wrote:ROFL Buy an Android.
Current account balance:
$12.57.
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Why didn't you just call Dustin and have him google your position and just give you directions from there once you got lost?
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On December 23 2010 07:49 hordeau wrote:
Why didn't you just call Dustin and have him google your position and just give you directions from there once you got lost?
Because my phone has been dead for, like, 4 days.
Besides I had a compass.
Eventually.
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9934 Posts
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lol, well at least your mission is complete. Buy yourself a GPS or better yet, don't shy away from asking people for directions.
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it wasnt that epic... just saying,
but glad you made it home!
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Pretty not epic. Driving around for hours on end while lost happens to most people at some point in their life. Glad everything worked out for you though, and the story was still pretty entertaining.
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That would NEVER happen to me...I live in an island :D
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Why didnt you just made your own map on a piece of paper before you headed out? That thing never fails!
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thou shall hath thy fury if the food is not exquisite
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Okay. So I got some sleep and just reread it.
Holy CRAP. It's written horribly D:
Oh and for the record, I know it's not that epic. I was being facetious, lawl
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Did you feel like a pirate while using the compass?
I would.
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GPS. Fuck that.
Phone. Fuck that.
Cheap Ass Compass. I got this shit.
Hilarious story man. I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago. Ended up ruining a damn wheel because of the roads I had to take to get to my destination. Potholes aren't fun.
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sorry but why wouldnt u call to the place asking for directions on getting there or someone who knew?? Also funny story almost same thing happened to me 1 month ago when I was in bansko,Bulgaria with my best man looking to go to a club. Imagine a place that is like a small village and u have to make turns in every corner u take cause the road doesnt go further. I must have done about 15 turnovers that night and drove for like 1:30 hour in almost the same streets. and on top of that it was raining like hell and we couldnt even see anything outside. it was funny.
ps: now I saw ur phone was dead. Moral of the story: Never drive to someplace u dont know how to go without a working phone!
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On December 23 2010 20:24 ffswowsucks wrote:
sorry but why wouldnt u call to the place asking for directions on getting there or someone who knew?? Also funny story almost same thing happened to me 1 month ago when I was in bansko,Bulgaria with my best man looking to go to a club. Imagine a place that is like a small village and u have to make turns in every corner u take cause the road doesnt go further. I must have done about 15 turnovers that night and drove for like 1:30 hour in almost the same streets. and on top of that it was raining like hell and we couldnt even see anything outside. it was funny.
ps: now I saw ur phone was dead. Moral of the story: Never drive to someplace u dont know how to go without a working phone!
Agreed. Not only a working phone but a full proper map! lol.
I faced my times of getting lost in a small city finding for such places during my internship. I remember once I had to find a place where its not listed on the signboards and it isn't listed on the maps. Had to call the place directly to get there.
Anyhow, my time of getting lost certainly didnt match to ur 6 hours lol. Congrats in a certain way XD Your decisions are good but more preparation prior to leaving the house will definitely be handy.(Google map especially the satelite photos lol). A lesson learned not for one but the more of us who will eventually end up in similar troubles.
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On December 23 2010 20:24 ffswowsucks wrote:
ps: now I saw ur phone was dead. Moral of the story: Never drive to someplace u dont know how to go without a working phone!
I am going to best buy in like 2 hours for the sole purpose of buying a car charger for my phone.
Also I left my compass in the glove compartment.
You never know.
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Ouch yo... I can totally relate. I have zero sense of direction. I can get lost in my own city EASILY, and if I haven't driven somewhere at least several times, I'll *need* directions. It's kind of sad, really. My dad and brother are like fucking pigeons with little compasses in their heads, while my uncle, mother, and myself are all just navigationally retarded.
Anyway something like that did happen to me once after dropping some friends off at a back-packing site out in middle-of-fucking-nowhere west virginia. (We live in maryland so it was about a 4 hour drive or so). But yeah the GPS just wtf died, and WV is such a shitty state that no wireless carrier had yet bothered to install cell towers. I was lost in the middle of nothing but forests and cows for miles in every direction. My first reaction was to... start crying and pull over and plead with the GPS to stop failing.
Turns out I was like half a mile from a sign to the highway so it ended up not being that bad, lol.
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These kind of thing are frustrating when your alone but sometimes funny when your with ppl.
It remember me that one time we were driving from Banff, Alberta to Edmonton. We passed through Calgary and after a while in the middle of nowhere we pulled aside and ask some farmer where was Edmonton. He started burst laughing like : " man your far from Edmonton dude, turn around and drive 45 min to Calgary". We were like o fuck we just lost 1h30. haaa good times.
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EPT
