You Cant Make This Stuff Up...

Dear Reader,

Please do not judge me too harshly for what you are about to read. We all make mistakes. Yes, you do too! Granted, this was a rather long, stupid, time consuming mistake, but it ends well; I promise. Have a laugh at me, I give you full permission:

Today I was in Greensboro, NC. (See the map below. It organizes this story better) Greensboro is about 2 hrs north west of Morrisville, NC. On the map, I needed to drive to the right and down to get to my hotel in Morrisville. I got into my car at 2pm, set the GPS, and was on the road.

About 10 minutes into my journey, I decided I wanted to go to a TJ Maxx to purchase an inexpensive UNC Chapel Hill t-shirt. Shhh. Don't tell U-. I'm not cheating on them! My heart will always be with U-. I typed TJ Maxx into the GPS, saw a few, and picked one that was pretty far away. Usually, I hit "find: near destination" or "find: on my current route" so the TJ Maxx's listed would be on my way. I wasn’t in the mood to shop right away so I was planning on getting closer to the hotel before doing some shopping and then dinner. This is a key part to the story. So I drive about 2 hours to TJs and do a little shopping. Okay, a lot of shopping. $75 worth of shopping! I bought my t-shirt, dress pants, a dress shirt, and my winter coat. Funny, isn't it, that I bought my winter coat down South where it doesn't get as cold? Anyways, then I headed over to Five Guys (one of my all time favorite restaurants). I've made it my goal to eat at a Five Guys in every state I travel to. So far, so good.

So the burger was delish, as expected, and after 30 minutes or so, I headed back out into my car and typed the hotel address into the GPS. You can imagine the look of disbelief/horror my face when the GPS said my hotel was 2hr 12mins away!!! I had just driven TWO hours to get to the store. I checked the address of the hotel again. Morrisville…..I was in Mooresville, not MorrISville. Here I am thinking I am dining and shopping right near my hotel. What a mistake. I must have forgotten to type in "find: near my destination" because I ended up picking one of the furthest TJ Maxx stores away from the hotel. Unbelievable.

So here's the map. You can see all of NC here, plus the surrounding states to give you an idea of how far I was going. I started at the green school house and was supposed to go over to the yellow hotel. I ended up shopping/eating at the red exclamation point. The blue lines are routes I had to drive. You'll notice I had to go just about all the way back to the school to continue on my way to the hotel!

So I drove and drove and drove two more hours back in the other direction. Turns out I went just about all the way to Charlotte, NC. Which is down and left. Remember, I was supposed to go down and right. If anyone put this in a movie, the audience would think that no one could possibly be this stupid. They'd think surely, the person would have realized that nothing at all looked familiar. Nope. I didn’t notice. I had driven the route I was supposed to be taking less than 48 hours earlier and not once did it occur to me that I shouldn’t be seeing Charlotte sings. Not once.

So it was a lot of driving back, through Greensboro and then back to Morrisville, but thanks to my boys, John, Jack, and Jason....that’s Mayer, Johnson, and Mraz, of course, and my friend A for keeping my company on the phone, the ride went pretty quickly. A little OAR and Journey accompanied me too, for the record. Too much coffee shop music would have run me off the road. I did get to see some pretty cool sights. Like that camel to the left. Why are their camels in North Carolina? I don’t know. And I saw some pretty red and white wildflowers on the side of the road and some other fun things. I had to drive a while through the country. What gorgeous rolling hills they have. Though, apparently people around here get to pick the names of roads. Who would name a road Pet Memorial Drive, Kentucky Derby Road, or Home Road?! Crazy Southern folk. No offense, y’all have been very nice!

And so after a few hours and a pit stop, I got back to my amazing hotel, Cambria Suites, where I had stayed a few nights earlier in the week before heading to Greensboro. Walking in, I must have looked like a windblown, over tired mess, but I was greeted with open arms (well, not physically) by Joseph, the incredible manager of the hotel. WELCOME BACK! he shouted across the lobby. I told him of my folly and he laughed, as I assumed he would. Apparently, I was not the first guest who had made this mistake! He said that travel agents often mishear their clients on the phone and when they say they want Moorsville, they end up with a hotel booked in Morrisville. That mistake makes sense. Easy to hear things wrong on the phone. If only my error could be chalked up to someone else's fault! This was solely my own. I will take full ownership.

By now you would think I would have learned to put a little less blind faith in the box on my windshield. The GPS, affectionately called Garm/Garmy/Garminator, who I often speak out loud to by name as if it's going to respond, leads me astray quite often. It doesn't respond to me and I'm not insane, before you go sign me up for therapy. But it gets a little lonely on the road! (I talk to myself a lot, A LOT, too. Usually out loud when no 0nes around) If Garmin were a real travel agent, he would have been fired a long long time ago. Earlier this week I was headed out to a school in Greensboro. Garm didn't know a brand new highway system had been built around the city and it had no idea where I was. On a major four lane highway, I was NOT driving through the fields as he suspected. Freaking out, I had to pull over 3 times that morning in the shoulder to read the map and make my own directions using the picture Garm displayed. You see, technology hates me, essentially. I break everything there is or at least nothing ever seems to work right. My Droid has a talking navigation system, but as I discovered a couple weekends ago, it doesn’t work too well. Or at least, I don't know how to make it work. I love technology, though the love’s unrequited. Without it I wouldn’t be able to do this job. I can't imagine how my supervisors did it 5-10 years ago, with a big atlas spread out on the passenger seat. You can’t hit “find: fuel” on a paper map!

Back to the present. So I walked into the hotel at 8pm, six full hours later, and Joseph said he was excited to have me back. Apparently, as a repeat customer I have the privilege of being bumped up to a nice(r) room. As if my last room wasn't nice enough; I went from a 1 room bedroom/living room to a 2 room suite (well, plus a bathroom, which is now the times the size.) The living room is giant. I could have a huge party in it. I also got a thank you note for returning and inside it was a free drink at the bar. So here I sit, in the hotel bar, the only female in the room, drinking my Corona with lime. The other guys are drinking wine, mixed drinks, or beer they poured into frosted cups. Contrary to etiquette, I fully think glasses change the taste of beer, and so I am proudly drinking my beer right out of the bottle, for all these men to see.


Cheers!

Post Script: A friend of mine, A, today suggested that this blog is just too hilarious and could be made into a movie. I promise, I don’t make this stuff up! It's all really happening. But I am stating now, that if this ever makes it to the big, or little, screen I’d very much like Jennifer Aniston to play my part. Duh.