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Do I Turn Right Here or at the Next Billboard?

This is simple; I know I can do this. Having been in this vacation city for a while now and having paid considerable attention to the street signs – but more to the billboards, sign boards, and the unusual names of businesses along the routes for errands and/or simple trips taken frequently from here to there – I know I can do this.

For instance, the nearest Starbucks starts with a right turn out of the complex until a Hess Gasoline station appears on the left (There is a Hess gas station on the right also, but that one is ignored) and at the next corner after the correct Hess station, turn left until a sign for “Fibber McGee’s Closet” (Honestly that’s the name!) appears; then a right turn into the next entrance. Starbucks is right beyond it with small street signage, not visible easily from the street from this direction until you are right on top of it. This direct trip takes less than 12 minutes with normal traffic.

Walgreens! That is a right turn out of the back entrance of the complex and then a U-turn. (You can’t go to the right as the street is one way.) Then stay on that street for 3 stop lights; (about 10/12 blocks) until you see a large Sun Bank sign on the right, then immediately edge into the right hand lane for the next right turn in. That trip is less than 15 minutes…usually.

And the Publix Super Market – that’s the easiest. Just turn right out of the complex and drive past the Hess gas stations on the left – the one that was ignored on the way to Starbucks – and stay to the left, watching for the large neon sign announcing Publix which is plainly seen from the street. This trip takes less than 10 minutes.

To get to the 20 screen movie-plex, leave out the back entrance, make the required U-turn and take a right turn at the “Luv-a-Wash Car and Pet Wash” on the left, then proceed straight for about 20 minutes until you see a Lowes on the left. Turn in there and wind through their adjoining parking lot or drive slightly further until Panera Bread is on the left and turn in there. Panera is directly adjoining the movie complex and thus closer than Lowes. This takes just over 25 minutes in normal traffic.

One of the biggest problems in traversing these streets is that they have been designed with many attractive shade trees along the parking area. Frequently, between the trees and the positioning of the street signs, you cannot make out the street names or even small strip shopping names until too late to make a timely turn without encouraging honks and other derisive reactions from fellow drivers. Ignore them!

Going further than 15 or 20 minutes causes the real issues of memory and eyesight to pop up. Turn left at the Health Insurance billboard? Or the Florida Lottery sign? How many stop lights or is it stop signs beyond that billboard? Carefully repeating aloud those directions garnered from memory helps by combining hearing with the visualization of the route. Of course, it is not unusual to have not recalled the appropriate directions to mind and repeating an incorrect direction raises havoc to time schedules and the stomach. It is only when you arrive late or get lost and have to ask a friendly local how to get there that you discover just how incorrect these particular directions were.

One of the major disruptions to carefully remembered plans is changing billboard signage. Normally billboards show a similar message from month to month so you really don’t have to read them – just glance at them to form a general outline of the image and logo. In plotting a course to the beach, for example, the following worked just fine:  Drive six blocks beyond the Bible billboard that says: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew VI, 14-15;” then turn left at the “towards the beaches” sign and proceed to 8th Street and turn left until the beach parking lot appears, about 20 minutes. Now, that Bible billboard proclaimed that same message perfectly well for at least the first three weeks of vacation even though it was visibly peeling and in disrepair. It had an air of finality absent from other billboards and the most verbiage of any billboard I encountered and it was on the way to both “downtown” and the beaches. During the fourth week or so it was repainted and replaced with another quote which caused all sorts of dread because it was shorter and because its message was more ominous:  “Repent ye: for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Matthew I, 18.” How could you be sure it was the same billboard? Slowing down to think about whether or not it was, let alone to consider the new message, was an easy way to become the unkind focus of several nearby drivers who were obviously ignoring the new scripture.

All of this is easily corrected by constructing a Directional Notebook with written instructions on spiral notebook pages which is kept next to you in the passenger’s seat. Being on a spiral, the pages don’t flap around but beware of Post-it notes; they get lost in the “carbage.” Glancing down and turning a page or two usually answers the directional question provided the full-sized notebook pages are plainly titled in large letters so you don’t have to fumble for glasses. Capitalized directions with underlined changes in direction help keep the master plan in mind. For example: “YMCA – left turn out of the complex, straight past the Florida Lottery billboard ($56 million this week!).”

Usually you can find your way back by glancing at the notebook as you get in behind the wheel and reverse the directions. Since that trip is taken infrequently, it doesn’t merit a separate page of its own. To go to the Dunkin Donuts from the Y (a favorite coffee stop, although others in the car may prefer Starbucks) I think carefully about the path. Sometimes this happens more than once, so finally it has become listed with directions on the Y page, both to the Dunkin Donuts as well as home from Dunkin Donuts. These directions are positioned on a separately (consecutively) numbered page adjoining the fold. The routes directly to the Dunkin Donuts from home or from Dunkin Donuts to the Publix or to and from the dry cleaners are not frequent trips.

The most certain resolution to the issue of “how to get there,” however, is to plan all the errands with my wife in the passenger seat. Her “direction bump” includes an internal GPS that has never been found incorrect. She has demonstrated the innate ability to spout directions for the quickest, shortest and/or most correct route to a destination no matter what city or country we are driving in.

Lately, she has benevolently ceased announcing this particular fact of our married life.