the_other_sandy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_other_sandy) wrote2010-07-02 11:58 am
the_other_sandy) wrote2010-07-02 11:58 am
Entry tags:
Thar She Blows!
Excuse me while I vent my spleen. You may want to don the special safety goggles.
I'm in Davenport, Iowa, for a farewell BBQ for a friend who is being deployed to the Middle East (again). I chose to drive out tonight and stay in a hotel overnight rather than drag myself out of bed at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. I had directions from Google maps, and I know the area pretty well from when my friends used to live here. So, I got to the place that Google maps said the hotel was. It turned out to be a service drive behind a strip mall. Needless to say, there was no hotel hiding there. I drove around the area a bit to see if the little pinpoint on the map was off by a block or two, but no, it was a residential area. No hotel. At this point, it's very late and pretty much everything is closed.
Then I had an idea. I would just find another major street and find a hotel, any hotel, and ask at the desk. The desk people always have maps of the local area, right? So I found another hotel and went to the desk. And stood there for a small eternity while the sole employee answered phone call after phone call. I should have taken it as a sign that he answered every question with "I don't know" and/or "I can't help you." Guess what he said when I approached him with my problem? I asked if I could use his phone to call my hotel to get directions. No matter what number I dialed on the cordless handset he gave me, the phone rang to his switchboard. No, he didn't know how to forward the call through.
I finally spotted a public computer station and hit up Google maps again. Nope, still directing me to a strip mall. Then I tried the hotel's website. This time the little pinpoint came down about 2 miles west of where I was. Did you know that East 53rd St. is west of 53rd St.? Me either. I suppose that makes about as much sense as anything else that's happened to me tonight.
At least I knew where the other street was. My friends used to live on it, albeit several miles farther down. I drove to the new 53rd St. and found the hotel. I could even see it. It was high up on a hill...with no roads leading to it that I could find. I eventually got turned around and approached from the right direction to see that the street leading to the hotel was unlighted, barely marked, and blocked on one side by a construction barricade. When I finally made it to the front desk of my hotel, I told the desk person about the problem with Google maps. She knew before I told her that it had directed me to a strip mall. If this is such old news to them, you'd think they'd tell people making reservations, "Oh, by the way, use our website to get directions so you don't end up behind a strip mall two miles away." Or is that just crazy talk?
And now that I'm here, there doesn't seem to be any way to turn left out of the parking lot, so I have no idea how I'm going to get back to I80 even though I know exactly where it is--to my left.
Hopefully, this is not a harbinger of things to come this weekend.
I'm in Davenport, Iowa, for a farewell BBQ for a friend who is being deployed to the Middle East (again). I chose to drive out tonight and stay in a hotel overnight rather than drag myself out of bed at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. I had directions from Google maps, and I know the area pretty well from when my friends used to live here. So, I got to the place that Google maps said the hotel was. It turned out to be a service drive behind a strip mall. Needless to say, there was no hotel hiding there. I drove around the area a bit to see if the little pinpoint on the map was off by a block or two, but no, it was a residential area. No hotel. At this point, it's very late and pretty much everything is closed.
Then I had an idea. I would just find another major street and find a hotel, any hotel, and ask at the desk. The desk people always have maps of the local area, right? So I found another hotel and went to the desk. And stood there for a small eternity while the sole employee answered phone call after phone call. I should have taken it as a sign that he answered every question with "I don't know" and/or "I can't help you." Guess what he said when I approached him with my problem? I asked if I could use his phone to call my hotel to get directions. No matter what number I dialed on the cordless handset he gave me, the phone rang to his switchboard. No, he didn't know how to forward the call through.
I finally spotted a public computer station and hit up Google maps again. Nope, still directing me to a strip mall. Then I tried the hotel's website. This time the little pinpoint came down about 2 miles west of where I was. Did you know that East 53rd St. is west of 53rd St.? Me either. I suppose that makes about as much sense as anything else that's happened to me tonight.
At least I knew where the other street was. My friends used to live on it, albeit several miles farther down. I drove to the new 53rd St. and found the hotel. I could even see it. It was high up on a hill...with no roads leading to it that I could find. I eventually got turned around and approached from the right direction to see that the street leading to the hotel was unlighted, barely marked, and blocked on one side by a construction barricade. When I finally made it to the front desk of my hotel, I told the desk person about the problem with Google maps. She knew before I told her that it had directed me to a strip mall. If this is such old news to them, you'd think they'd tell people making reservations, "Oh, by the way, use our website to get directions so you don't end up behind a strip mall two miles away." Or is that just crazy talk?
And now that I'm here, there doesn't seem to be any way to turn left out of the parking lot, so I have no idea how I'm going to get back to I80 even though I know exactly where it is--to my left.
Hopefully, this is not a harbinger of things to come this weekend.