Today, Christina and I decided that we wanted to go nature walking/ hiking at Jordan Lake. We got all ready and I mapquested directions. This was my first mistake. See...MapQuest has a misguided assumption that you know in general where you are going, and so gives you directions accordingly.
But nethertheless, we headed out with full confidence that we would have a great day at the lake and still make it home in time for me to pick up another friend at the airport and for Christina to get on skype.
The directions said to take Mt. Carmel Church Rd off of 15/501. We did not find this place and suddenly wound up in Pittsboro, very confused. We stopped at an Exxon station and talked to a rather displeased and grouchy woman.
"Um..we're looking for 64 West?"
"Where are you trying to go?"
"Um...64...West."
"No, where are you going?"
"Jordan Lake?"
"Okay, well, if you're going THERE, you need to get out to this stoplight. Do you see the stoplight? There's a stoplight. When you get THROUGH the stoplight you'll make a left and get into your far most lane....to the right. Then you'll get on 64 and Jordan Lake is right there."
This woman seemed very annoyed that we had interrupted her day to ask directions. But we followed them to the best of our ability/ my own personal willingness, which brought us through the stoplight. I then decided to follow my flawless navigational instincts and go LEFT onto 64 West, because that was the road we were originally looking for. It took about five minutes for us to realize this was wrong (okay, Christina knew the whole time, but I'm stubborn) and turn around. We did find the road where Jordan Lake was off of and got very excited. But then we saw the booth and it is here we met the Ginger.
The Ginger walked out and said it was $6 to park. Christina and I looked at each other. $6?! I asked if he took debit and he said no. I then asked if he could be cool and just let us go, but he also said no. He then said there was an ATM just a little further back the way we came, so we turned around.
There was a plywood box next to the road. I'm not sure if that was the ATM or not, but it was in the yard of two doublewides that had been tied together with what looked to be chicken wire, so I wasn't so keen on finding out. We decided that we might want to cut our losses, since we had been in the car for over 50 minutes to find a place that was 16 miles away. We decided to follow the MapQuest directions back to see if they were right.
We didn't get a chance to find out if they were right or not, because I saw a sign that pointed to Durham and turned there before I could see the road sign. We had gotten onto NC 751. Neither of us had heard of this, but because I am a stubborn driver, I forged ahead while Christina rolled her eyes and tried to convince me to turn around. A half a dozen dairy farms later, I decide to call my mom, who for some reason couldn't understand that we were on NC 751 and was convinced we had already passed I-40, which we hadn't. Knowing that 751 eventually led to 40 was enough information for me, and with a bit more confidence, we continued.
Turns out, 751 comes out near Southpoint, and there was much rejoicing. To celebrate, we went to PETCO and looked at the cats.
We returned home after two confusing hours and without any hiking whatsoever.
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