Cardinal, that’s hilarious. And you just reminded me of one more thing about the Catalina confusion: Somebody once asked their visitors’ board if the entire island is surrounded by water.
!!!
A couple of my friends did the drive the wrong direction thing, for 8 hours. They were driving from Denver to Reno, and somewhere in nevada, they stopped for gas and changed drivers. The new guy had been sleeping the whole time, and the other guy went to sleep, so the guys got back on the interstate the wrong way and didn’t notice until he saw the welcome to Wyoming sign. Hehe he’s never gonna live that one down.
The worst I’ve ever done it was driving south from the North, I tried to pass around D.C. via Leesburg, to avoid the D.C. rush hour. When I was supposed to turn towards Fredericksburg, I somehow turned west. took me awhile to realize I was in the Shenandoah valley! Fortunately i was still going South 
Dude, you got lucky! That’s God’s Country.
I used to drive bobtail trucks for an entertainment company, and once I had to drive from Salt Lake City to Austin, TX with another guy, who was a bit of a dumbass. I drove the first leg, and gave him the wheel with instructions to wake me when we got to Amarillo. Well, Bugs Bunny actually took a wrong turn in Albuquerque, and when I woke up, I immediately realized we were almost in Mexico, and turned into Yosemite Sam. I probably over-reacted, but we were about 150 miles behind, and I hate to be late. Rassa Frassin’!
Aw, come on, KFC for breakfast is good for you! It’ll put hair on your chest!
Being a passanger on many long distance road trips I have MANY times gone into a generic gas station and asked what state I was in. Stupid friends think its funny to tell me I’m in the wrong state… grumble grumble…
Yeah, but there is the little fact that you have to stop and pay the toll when you reach the state line. New Jersey won’t let you out that easy.
I think you give off certain vibes. I apparently do as well.
People are always asking me for directions, which is bad since even if I know how to get somewhere or find something, I’m not good at communicating how to do this.
I am thinking of wearing a little sign that says “Trust me, I don’t know where it is either”.
That happens to me also. I had people in Sydney ask for directions while I was doing the tourist thing, including taking pictures of everything in sight. And they were Aussies. Then there was the couple that asked me for directions when I was walking in Washington, DC. They wanted directions to the Washington Monument.
Hye, guy, what’s a jughandle turn?
One of those where to turn left, you go into the right hand lane, which then peels off and loops round like a jughandle to join the left-bound traffic on the road you’re joining.
I could be a complete bastard and mention that our own Shayna was attempting to drive from Holland to Germany and wound up in France, having gone completely thru Belgium without noticing.
Try living in Rhode Island. You’d be shocked to realize how many people say, “Rhode Island? That’s in New York, right?” I can see if you’re from another country, because I don’t know the provinces/states/cantons of every other country, but AMERICANS?! Do these people vote? Do they reproduce? Good God!
Ok, riddle me this… what are the circumstances by which a person from NJ would need to go to a very specific KFC restaurant in a small NY town 4hrs from the NJ border at 7:30am? :dubious:
I’ve had the misfortune of driving through that area, and you can’t tell southern NYS from Pennsyltucky until, and unless, you run into the fireworks and porn stands that testify to the fact that you are in the keystone state.
A friend of mine lives in Carlsbad, California (a bit north of San Diego.) He’s had several people ask him, “Where are the caverns?”
What do you say to such a question? He tells them, “You might want to change your plans…”
Trinopus
I can. But that’s cause I’m special 
Actually, I think it must be building codes and maybe even culture that differ, because in North PA there seems to be less foliage in towns and the houses are a bit closer to the street than in southern NYS. In addition, you are leaving the Southern Tier, so while there will still be plenty of hills they will be less well-organized.
However, I’d agree with you w/r/t crossing over from Chautauqua into the Erie area, as the plateau goes all the way to Lake Erie there, making the geography in many ways the same as southern NY. In addition there is plenty of foliage.
But, and this may be one of the few times one can say this in a non-risque context, that may indeed be TMI.
See, I read this and thought at first you meant Fredonia, AZ (just north of the grand canyon) – although I guess it would be harder to make that mistake if you were driving.
(or is Fredonia in Utah? This thread is undermining my geographical confidence!)
So forget his breath … what did his eyes look like?
I personally found there to be a very unfortunate lack of signage in the PA/NJ/NY area. While driving to the NY MegaDopefest, typo_mna, Dynosaur and I had a strange moment when we couldn’t figure out what state we were in. We had been in PA, and we knew we weren’t anymore, because the mile markers had gone down to 1, but there was no sign at all to tell us what state we were in. Our only map was a poor one printed from Yahoo. What are a couple of Midwesterners and a Californian to do? We debated for a few minutes on whether we were in New Jersey or Delaware before a road sign finally made it clear we were in NJ.
When we finally hit NY, there was no sign there either. I think we were just supposed to know that crossing the George Washington Bridge = New York.
I think we swore never to tell anyone about that. Oh well.