The Directionally Challenged Reality Show

There could be a whole new reality show which entails having directionally challenged people try to get around in Phoenix or any other big city.

Driving places in Phoenix is easy, except if you are directionally challenged. I keep telling my wife that the city is a grid. A graph with specific lines that run east and west and north and south. Once you lay the grid over the valley, you can see that it is interrupted by mountains. And there are certain exceptions to the rules of street names. Therein lies the challenge.

Normally, streets that run North and South have numbers: 23rd Street, 23 Avenue, 23Road, Lane, Drive, Circle...So it can be a bit confusing. Streets that run East and West have names...Bell Road, Greenway Road, Thunderbird Road, etc. There are also the exceptions to those streets and roads that were here before the grid and that run diagonally through the valley: Cave Creek Road, Grand, Tatum Boulevard, Scottsdale Road. Then there are the highways that loop around the outside of the cities: the Loop 101 which was the first loop and goes around the center; the Loop 202 which goes around the East Valley; and the soon to be Loop 303 which will go around the West side of the Valley. Those cause other problems...

The other day, we were traveling around the valley viewing the sites (which we do about two times a week) and my wife was trying to get her bearings. She asked if we were on Cactus Road and I replied that we were. A couple blocks later, we did not make a turn and we were on Thunderbird Road. She asked, "When did we turn?" I told her we had not, and she became confused. It seems that at Cave Creek Road, Cactus and Thunderbird move over a mile to go around a mountain, but there is no warning, other than a little green sign at the intersection. The GRID CHANGED WITHOUT NOTICE! A little while later, we caught up with Cactus again...Now she is totally confused.

She has often said that the main reason we moved out here is so I could send her to the store and she would get lost and wander aimlessly. I keep telling her there is no chance of that. What I have not told her, though, is that to get home she has to turn on 23rd Avenue because it becomes our street without any turns.

Maybe later,I will send her out for a Subway sandwich on 19th Avenue and Greenway Road... or is that Greenway Parkway?

Doughnut