I get the same thing when I go to see my mom in AZ. Everyone assumes I’ll be sitting in the middle of a desert around a pool getting tan. I’m going to the freaking MOUNTAINS. They have more snow than WE do.
There is a local legend I heard some time ago about some morning DJ who was new to the Twin Cities area. He said something like, “It’s a beautiful morning in Minneapolis–a great day to take a walk around Lake Minnetonka!”
Now, there are lakes in the city of Minneapolis that people walk around, such as Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun. But not Lake Minnetonka. For one thing, it’s not in Minneapolis–it’s about 20-25 miles west. (OK, so it is within the listening area, so that wasn’t so bad.) For another thing, though, Lake Minnetonka is big. Very big. In fact, it is so big, and of such an irregular shape, that its total shoreline is over 200 miles long! That’s quite a walk, even on a “beautiful morning”.
The hand-map thing works for other states, too. My husband likes to show where his hometown in Wisconsin is on his left hand. He folds down his fingers and voila! Instant map of Wisconsin.
In London, the underground map does not reflect the real locations of the stations. It took me a long time to work out that taking trains from Angel to Highbury & Islington is a pointless 20-minute venture instead of a three minute walk, and that taking trains from Kentish Town to Chalk Farm is equally pointless. The best? Charing Cross to Embankment: two separate stations that pretty much back onto each other.
Sorry Scratch, those of us from inside 495* say “Wuhstuh” or “Wuhstah”, not “Wistah”. 
And then there’s the town of “Lestah”, spelt “Leicester”. Worcester, Dorchester, Leicester … Gloucester’s just like Worcester, almost… “Glawstah”.
Of course, the best part is in the city (Boston) itself… because of the infamous “Big Dig”, we don’t need to change the names of streets around – we get to change the streets themselves. That street you took yesterday? It’s 40 feet underground today. How do you get on the expressway (I-93)? I don’t know … good luck finding it!
And then there’s US-3. Can annybody explain this to me? It runs along the South Shore (from Plymouth-Quincy), combines with I-93 on the Quincy/Braintree border, splits off at the Storrow Drive exit, runs over to Memorial Drive … then I lose it, but I think it pops back up around Chelmsford… Huh?
*That’s I-495 to the rest of you.
Speaking on behalf of all the Downstate Illinois Dopers, I’d like to say that it makes us FURIOUS when people assume that Chicago is the capital of Illinois.
Springfield, okay? SPRINGFIELD is the capital of Illinois.
Buffalo - the locals always use long-gone businesses and institutions for landmarks in giving directions. Expressway names are used instead of their route numbers, even though the names are not on the signs. Street signs in most areas are quite small – there’s few overhead signs like what you’d find in most other cities – so even finding major streets is a hassle.
Las Cruces - directions are only comprehendible to old-timers and those who are extremely familiar with the area. Example – “Go a half mile past the Gonzales place, turn right off the paved road, take a right where Rudy has the cockfights every August , and take a left at where Chuy’s barn cought fire a few years ago … it’s nothing …”
Denver - It’s not in the mountains, damnit! Denver is flat, flat, flat. Kansas City has more topography than Denver.
Senator Feingold used this in his first campaign back in 1992, when he was a sixth-place candidate and it was basically his and four other guys in a van going around the state. One of his commercials ended with him holding up his palm to the camera and pointing at the base of his thumb: “Next week, La Crosse!”
OK, Chowd Dopers, I get the “Wustah” and “Lestah”. I have relatives up there. But how do you get “weigh-em” out of Wareham?
Now that I don’t live in NYC anymore, I’m amazed at how many people think it’s just Manhattan, and nothing else. I have to explain that it’s also Queens and Brooklyn (both on Long Island), Staten Island (it’s own island, like Manhattan), and the Bronx, the only part of NYC attached to the mainland US. Oh, and all the people who think there’s absolutely nothing else in NY State outside of NYC. :rolleyes:
It’s almost as bad where I live now, in North Alabama. Most people assume it’s nothing but flat cotton and peanut fields. They don’t even grow peanuts here. And I live in the beginnings of the Appalachian Mountains!
They also think I’m walking around in a t-shirt because I live in “The South”. I had to clean snow off my car this morning!!! Sunday morning it was 12 degrees!
At least, it’s the capital of Downstate Illinois (defined as anything south of Kankakee). Anybody who’s been to Springfield is not surprised that people make the natural assumption that Chicago is the capital of Illinois. We dominate the entire freaking state, after all. I’m sure Albany has the same problem.
Unfortunately, I’m sober this week. I’d prefer not to be.
I don’t actually live in the UP. Grew up there, but moved to Colorado in 1991. Now I’m furiously scheming to move back to the UP. So in the spirit of interstate rivalry, Colorado sucks. UP rules. Lower Michigan sucks. And wherever you’re from, Dinsdale, that sucks, too.
(hey, don’t tell ME this belongs in the Pit. Dinsdale started it. I’m just playin’ along. Plus, if it was in the pit, I’d swear more.)
Absolutely. “Up north” is the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. Into the UP is always “We’re going to the UP”.
Athena, say yah, eh?
My favorite when I was in London in October was discovering, at the end of my stay, that the British Rail station part of Paddington Station was nearly a mile away from the Underground part of Paddington Station, and yet still connected by tunnels and stairs. Of course, my wife and I discovered this while we were carrying heavy baggage.
“Don’t worry, dear! The rail is in the same station as the underground! We’ll have no problem catching our train.”
Thankfully, we had allowed extra time just in case.
Another Hollywood geo-gaffe.
In a forgettable film from about 10 years ago set in Trenton, New Jersey:
Vinnie: “Hey Treesa, lets go downa shore!”
Theresa: “Mmmmm, Ok Vin. Dat sounz great!”
Guy and Gal hop in convertable and drive off.
Cut to aerial shot of couple in car crossing large bridge with giant letters on it reading “TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES”.
The problem? The “Trenton Makes” bridges crosses the Delaware river into Pennsylvania :rolleyes:
Living in Jacksonville, we get a lotta people (from up ‘nawth’) driving into town who think that now they’re in Florida, Disney World must be around the next bend. Sorry, its another 150 miles south. No one really seems to have a clue as to how long Florida is. By the way, come, spend your money, AND GO HOME! We are growing too much as it is.
And about that body imagery (mitten for Michigan LP, hand for Wisconsin == not an udder?), I don’t even want to try that with Florida.
Just read Shiva’s post about geo-confusion in an old movie. My favorite is some really old one (in black and white), probably a sci-fi flick, or maybe a Twilight Zone episode. The hero washes up on the beach in Florida. Camera goes from close up of bedraggled hero, backing into a long shot of the beach, showing mountains in the distance.
In case anyone doubted me when I said that sometimes maps leave off the entire UP, I give you this:
http://www.daveandbusters.com/locations/locationsframe.html
Note that I wasn’t even looking for this. I just happened upon this while looking for directions to a Dave & Busters.
Uh oh, you don’t suppose the Upper Peninsula has been secretly annexed by Canada, do you? Keep your eyes open for that cannabis-leaf flag…
Sleepless in Seattle always gets laughs here when Tom Hanks gets in his little boat on Lake Union, motors a short way, and then pulls it up on Alki Beach on Puget Sound. To do that, he’d have had to carry the boat overland or wait for the locks to cycle. And Meg Ryan follows him in her car: a totally impossible feat, by any means.
As far as stupid tourists, I was once in the sand dunes about 250 yards from the surf when a tourist asked me which direction the Pacific Ocean was. Sure, you couldn’t exactly see it from where we were, but you could have found it with your eyes closed from the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. Or, just maybe, you could have gone toward the sunset that was painting the sky pink at the time.
If you’re in Springfield, Illinois looking for a landmark on North Grand Avenue or South Grand Avenue, don’t start looking for a Grand Avenue and then turn north or south accordingly. North Grand Avenue is on the north side of town; it runs east and west. South Grand Avenue is on the south side of town; it, too runs east and west. And I suggest you avoid South Grand Avenue East at all costs, unless you want to buy crack.
And Lincoln’s Home is not on Lincoln Street. It’s on Jackson Street, but to get there you’d have to park on 7th Street or Capitol Avenue.
Nope, Canada doesn’t give a damn about the Upper Peninsula. Or at least the graphic artist at the Corel Corporation. As of WordPerfect version 9 or CorelDRAW version 8, they have possibly the freakest rendentions of the state of Michigan possible. If they don’t forget to draw the UP, they for some inexplicable reason combine the two is such a way to render the state unrecognizable. They hide the shape of the landmasses by including the parts of the Great Lakes that Michigan controls. Thus it turns a mitten and whatever the UP looks like (a coatrack?) into…well, I’m going to upload it on the fathom server, so you can see…
I’ll be right back.