Land of the Lost

Saturday morning, I was hailed by a driver during my walk. He and his wife (and I think a child in the back seat) needed directions to Interstate 10. Man, were they in the wrong place.

Last year, a female driver and her passengers were looking for a particular motel. They, too, were nowhere near where they wanted to be.

This map (if the link works) shows downtown Las Cruces. (Note: the map is accurate as far as the roads go, but the features aren't. The city library is not shown at the SE corner of Main and Picacho, and what the map says is the "Mesilla Park Elementary School" is actually the parking lot for a bank and a Peter Piper Pizza.) The arrows on Church and Water streets indicate one-way traffic, which makes a loop around downtown. First, I have to get the drivers to negotiate the loop, then they can get the real directions to where they want to go.

I wonder if they ever found their destinations. I picture that scene from National Lampoon's European Vacation, where Chevy Chase is caught in that traffic circle. (And those of you who have ever attempted, or even accomplished, negotiating traffic circles know that they are the mortal equivalent of Sisyphus pushing that boulder uphill.)

Sure, I'm curious how many wrong turns they made to be so far off course that they ended up downtown. The better question, though, is why they so badly need to be someplace else at five a.m. Man, those must have been some parties they were coming from!