Finding his way there

It was going to be a great reunion.
If only I could figure out how to get there.
I was on my way to Philadelphia to get together with friends I hadn’t seen in six years. Trouble is, Philadelphia’s an awfully big place. And I was relying upon inadequate maps in a national road atlas and a set of directions from one of those Internet sites.
The map in the atlas was too small to do much good, but the directions seemed clear enough.
At least they were clear enough for the first nine and a half hours.
I’d left early on a Friday morning, planning to make the trip in a single day so that Saturday would be free for getting together with my buddies Ozod, George, Bob, and Bakhadyr. (Ozod and Bakhadyr are from Uzbekistan and became U.S. citizens this year, George is from Connecticut, and Bob is from Washington, D.C.)
On Sunday morning, I planned to meet former CR editor Dan Rottenberg and his wife Barbara for breakfast.
But about 6 p.m. Friday, I was still somewhere outside of Philly, relying upon limited instructions.
According to the Internet, I was supposed to take I-76 to I-276, then get off at exit 352 for my hotel. Piece of cake.
So when I-76 split off from the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I followed the signs.
No sooner had I left the turnpike than I hit rush hour traffic. Six lanes, mostly bumper to bumper. Sometimes we crawled along. Sometimes we stopped completely. And sometimes we raced along like some crazed suburban NASCAR race at speeds I don’t want to think about. (Jimmie Johnson may have been in a mini-van full of commuters over in the right lane. I’m not sure.)
And, of course, it was raining. It was intermittent. But it had been raining ever since I left my driveway back in Indiana, so I was sort of used to it.
What I wasn’t used to was the sense that I didn’t know where the heck I was going.
I watched for I-276, which the Internet had promised me would take me to the promised land. The exit for I-176 had already passed. Then came I-476. But no I-276.
Traffic came and went. People who knew where they were going exited. Others who also seemed to know where they were going merged at cloverleaf after cloverleaf.
The guy from Indiana just kept going.
And then, surprisingly, I knew where I was.
I was someplace I wasn’t supposed to be.
I was in downtown Philadelphia. Skyscrapers loomed on the horizon. Various stadiums and sports venues popped up right and left.
Perhaps, I thought, only an idiot would trust the Internet for directions.
Then I saw it. A sign. “Last exit in PA.”
Go past that exit, and I would be in New Jersey. About as far from the promised land as possible.
I exited, found a parking lot with a good security light, and studied the insufficient map in the road atlas.
What had happened, I discovered, is that the Internet directions left out one step. I was supposed to stay with the turnpike for 28 more miles.
With some luck, I made my way back and even took a shortcut that worked. But the rain picked up as I reached the turnpike. By now, I’d been on the road eleven and a half hours, wasting two with my Philadelphia rush-hour sightseeing.
Bleary-eyed, I saw the sign for Exit 352. But then I noticed a new problem. Exit 352 was specified as “EZ Pass Only, No Cash.”
Now I don’t know about other residents of rural Indiana and Ohio, but I don’t have much use for an EZ Pass to pay tolls. I don’t much care for tolls, but when I encounter them I pay cash.
Acting on instinct, I exited a mile earlier, paid the toll, and soon found myself in a mall parking lot. Stopping under yet another convenient security light, I checked the paperwork I’d brought a long and found the phone number of my hotel.
The desk clerk gave me directions, and I eventually got there.
I only got lost once between the shopping mall and the hotel.[[In-content Ad]]