A Three Hour Tour

Joey just stuck a barcode on my face and now wants to know if he can scan me. I have not yet responded. Ow. He just pulled the barcode off and now my face hurts.

More to the point, Joey and I headed up to Wylie to get my hair cut from a friend of mine who works up there. I got the directions from Google Maps and we were on our way.

(Now, when I say I "got the directions", I mean that I glanced at the map, noticed that it seemed to be the first exit after the Bush Turnpike and then east a ways and we'd run right into it.)

I figured it would be easy as pie. Joey felt like bum, so I was doing the driving.

I pulled off 75 at the first exit after the Bush Turnpike and realized instantly that the "directions" I had thought would be really easy were not, in fact, really easy.

We wound up on FM544 and just started following it east. I figured it would take us somewhere that would lead us to Wylie. After fifteen minutes of this, I realized I'd better stop and ask directions.

And so I did.

The little Indian man in the convenience store very politely assured me that Wylie was "two or three more miles and you will come right to it".

He was kind of right. In two or three miles we came to the turn that took us to Wylie, which was better than nothing. Once we got to Wylie we had to find the road that the hair salon was on. I knew it was on Highway 78, but as we weren't really sure where that was...

We found it entirely by accident and then I nearly drove past because I missed the sigh for the hair salon. 35-40 minutes later, we were in the salon and I was getting my hairs cut.

We left the salon at 12:30. Joey was real hungry so we got subs real quick. My friend said "Oh, it's real easy to get back. Just stay on 78 and it'll take you right there."

And so we did.

I turned left because it seemed like the right thing to do.

Twenty minutes later, the towns were getting smaller, the road was down to two lanes (not something we've seen for awhile), and our hopes of ever seeing Dallas again were getting kinda slim.

"Um, I think I turned the wrong direction." I admitted to Joey.

"I think you did too." He concurred.

And so I turned the car around. The first sign we saw read: Dallas 34

We were thirty-four miles off course. Oy. That's halfway to the state border.

By this time it was very nearly 1:00. The drive back to Wylie was pretty quick, all things considered. But the drive just kept going. We found ourselves quite unsure of where we were, and quite unable to actually find Dallas.

Stinkin' Highway 78 was not taking us to anywhere that we knew.

I had dropped the ball on the getting of the directions yet again.

By 1:30, Joey and I realized that we were utterly lost. We knew where we wanted to go, but we couldn't figure out how to ask someone how to get there. It was the kind of lost where you don't even know what kind of landmark you should ask for directions to...because you're not sure where you are in relation to that landmark.

We finally made it to a freeway system that we recognized.

We got on it and, to our dismay, after five miles it was jammed because of an accident. We pulled off and were about to get onto the road that would take us home when all traffic stopped again.

A funeral procession.

I was about to stick my head out of the car and scream. It had been almost an hour and a half since we left Wylie. (It's only 20 miles of four-lane road from our apartment in Dallas.)

And, thus, I have learned my lesson. It is twofold:
1. Always print off directions from Google Maps. Never assume that I actually know how to get somewhere.
2. Have Joey drive.