Jogging dangerous to the ego!
Some years ago I went on a trip to visit a friend. As a young (attempting to be fit) junior office in the Royal Australian Air Force, I went for an early morning jog. It was 4km (20 minutes?) to the beach. I decided to take the direct route there and come back one block over, assuming that the street ran parallel…that was my first mistake… I turned to go back to the house and 1.5 hours later… I stopped to ask this nice old man, who was gardening, how to find Torooka Street. Explaining that I was out jogging and got lost didnt help the man to stop laughing at me! “Hop in honey,” he said as he kindly opened his car door. 10 minutes later he dropped me off at the door step.
The funniest part of this story is that I was on my way to my new assignment at the School of Air Navigation. (Fortunately I only taught Statistics!)
As commented by Dan:
We were living in Colorado Springs at the time and my wife (just told me she can edit this so I will tell the truth) was invited to visit a dear friend in Buena Vista CO, so I agreed to play Mr. Mom for the weekend. However, I was worried about her because, well, she is blonde and because she was VERY pregnant with kid #3. It was winter and the drive to BV goes through narrow canyons along the Colorado River near Royal Gorge. As an Aussie, Ros’ experience driving in snow was limited, so I played the patient husband and reminded her numerous times to please be careful and watch out for the dreaded “Black Ice.” Of course being from Australia she thought “Black Ice” was an alcoholic beverage! Alas, I explained that Black Ice resides in shadowy areas where cars are prone to slide and crash especially in canyons where the sun shines and then the shadows reappear to re-freeze the water into Black Ice.
I gave her directions to stay on Highway 24 to BV and call me when she arrived there. Well, she finally got on her way and after 1.5 hours the telephone rings. I dutifully asked her where she was and was there a problem. No problem - just going to be a little late! She was in Limon CO.
I responded, “You must be going the long way then.” Silence. Limon is east of Colorado Springs and Buena Vista is west of Colorado Springs. Ros had made a 180 degree error. But best of all she kept wondering when the mountains would appear. Honey you are headed towards western Kansas, the next mountains you might run into are the Ozarks if you’re lucky and most probaby the Appalachians. I suggested she turn around and come home but she said she wanted to get to BV. So she tried to call the ladies in BV to let them know she would be late. Of course their cell phones didn’t work up in the mountains. They had just held a prayer vigil for Ros when she walked in to the meeting over 3 hours late!
Never, ever ask her for directions. Magellan had better navigations skills. On many occasion she would ask me for directions in Colorado Springs. I would say go west. Invariably, “Where is that?” Honey the mountains have not moved since we arrived in Colorado Springs 6 years ago. They are to the west.