Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and a sign says, FUDDVILLE 102 MILES. And you realize that you are dealing with an-
other scale of geography altogether. There is a corresponding lack of detail on the maps.
On English maps every church and public house is dutifully recorded. Rivers of laugh-
able minuteness-rivers you can step across-are landmarks of importance, known for miles
around. In America whole towns go missing-places with schools, businesses, hundreds of
quiet little lives, just vanish as effectively as if they had been vaporized.
And the system of roads is only cruelly hinted at. You look at the map and think you spy
a shortcut between, say, WienerVille and Bewilderment, a straight gray line of county road
that promises to shave thirty minutes from your driving time. But when you leave the main
highway, you find yourself in a network of unrecorded back roads, radiating out across the
countryside like cracks in a broken pane of glass.
The whole business of finding your way around becomes laden with frustration, especially
away from the main roads. Near Jacksonville Imissed a left turn forSpringfield and had to
go miles out of my way to get back to where I wanted to be. This happens a lot in Amer-
ica. The highway authorities are curiously reluctant to impart much in the way of useful
information, like where you are or what road you are on. This is all the more strange when
you consider that they are only too happy to provide all kinds of peripheral facts-Now
ENTERING BUBB COUNTY SOIL CONSERVATION DISTRICT, NATIONAL SPRAT
HATCHERY 5 MILES, NO PARKING WED 3AM TO 6AM, DANGER: Low FLYING
GEESE, Now LEAVING BUBB COUNTY SOIL CONSERVATION DISTRICT. Often
on country roads you will come to a crossroads without signposts and then have to drive
twenty miles or more without having any confidence in where you are. And then abruptly,
withoutwarning,youroundabendandfindyourselfataneight-laneintersectionwithfour-
teen traffic lights and the most bewildering assortment of signs, all with arrows pointing in
different directions. Lake Maggot State Park this way. Curtis Dribble Memorial Express-
way over there. US Highway 41 South. US Highway 53 North. Interstate 11/78. Business
District this way. Dextrose County Teachers' College that way. Junction 17 West. Junction
17NotWest.NoU-Turn.LeftLaneMustTurnLeft.BuckleYourSeatBelt.SitUpStraight.
Did You Brush Your Teeth This Morning?
Just as you realize that you should be three lanes to the left, the lights change and you are
swept off with the traffic, like a cork on a fast river. This sort of thing used to happen to
my father all the time. I don't think Dad ever went through a really big and important in-
tersection without getting siphoned off to somewhere he didn't want to be-a black hole of
one-way streets, an expressway into the desert, a long and expensive toll bridge to some
offshore island, necessitating an embarrassing and costly return trip. (“Hey, mister, didn't
you come through here a minute ago from the other direction?”) My father's particular
