Back around 1969 we were relocating from Tucson to New York. My dad and my brother had already made the journey, so it was left to us girls to come on our own. My dad prepared us well for the trip by typing out an index card for each state providing us with the exact route details for each state so that we did not need to rely on making our own route.
So off we went on our cross-country adventure - my mom, me, Penny, and our little parakeet Pretty Bird.
The trip was going along very well until we reached OHIO. One dark night as I was reading my mom the directions for our next freeway change, I shouted out the sign with the arrow pointing to our entrance ramp. My mom quickly made the turn and instead of us being on an on-ramp to the freeway we found ourselves on an off-ramp with a Greyhound bus coming straight at us! My mom slowly backed up, collected her wits, and pulled into a coffee shop across the street and sent me in for a cup of coffee.
She was shook up, I was shook up and felt bad -- but hey I was an 11 year old kid trying to be a good navigator. The problem we discovered in Ohio was that sometimes the freeway signs were right at the exits and sometimes they were ahead of the exits and we were constantly missing ramps because of the inconsistency in the placement of their signs.
I truly don't remember much else about our girl's cross-country trip, but I vividly remember that crazy night in Ohio and how we couldn't wait to finally be out of that state.
But wait.....I do also remember how much I hated traveling through the state of Texas and constantly mentioned the fact that I would never, ever live in that stupid state. Guess things change don't they?
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