Journey of the Unaware

What a trip!

Debbie and I took a drive down to one of the Kentucky Jackson Purchase counties yesterday, and it was an experience; heading back, that is.

We started out from Evansville at 8:30 Thursday morning for Marshall County, Ky., which is in the south-west portion of the state. We arrived, as planned, at about 10:30am.

We spent the next 4 hours at the Benton courthouse, and the Marshall County Genealogical Society archives, digging through vital records, court records, etc., and at about 2:30, we left, and took a sight seeing tour around Benton, and the now Ky. Lake watered-over town of Birmingham; more about that later.

After some extra time shopping in antiques stores, we finally headed out of town, in route home, at about 5:30.

We had such a wonderful time researching my side of the family, and shopping, and the nice trip down there, that, on the way back home, we chatted on endlessly about what all we had seen, and done, and accomplished; so much so, that either we were simply distracted and missed our exit off the Western Kentucky (W. K.) Parkway East, onto the Pennyrile North, or else the exit simply wasn't there.

At one point, I had noticed a sign that said Louisville was just 75 miles. I wondered, aloud, about how we could be just 75 miles from Louisville. After a few moments, I had decided that it was simply a shorter trip from W. K. Parkway than from Evansville to Louisville. No more was thought about it.

After several, PLUS, hours of driving on the W. K. Pkwy (when it should have been only about 1 hr), we realized that we had missed our turn. No problem, we can’t be that far out of the way, I thought. I can turn around, and head back west.

Well, when we seen the sign that stated we were just 38 miles to Louisville, we realized we were definitely clueless, and unaware.

Now, one would think that we'd simply follow our directions down there, backward, or in reverse. After all, for the mechanically inclined (as which, I like to think of myself), it's a well known fact that "installation is the reverse of removal".

No, No, No! ALWAYS print out directions from MapQuest, or your favorite map site, for the return trip, Debbie informed me, in a panic induced state of demeanor. You see, apparently, the Exit numbers going back aren't going to be the same as they were going down. argh!

"BUT, I exclaimed, in vain, shouldn't there have been a sign that indicated an exit for the Pennyrile Pkwy?"

"ALWAYS print out directions from MapQuest, [or your favorite map site], for the return trip", Debbie informed me, once again, this time, in a more pronounced and determined tone of voice.

Instead of an actual driving time of about 4 hours, it turned into about 8 hours; we got back in Evansville a bit before 10pm.

We stopped at Denny’s, and had a nice, late, breakfast, and calmed our nerves quite a bit. While eating, and comparing everything that happened, we’d decided it had still been a good trip. We had a nice time digging through old records, and seeing a lovely, old, small, but very active town, and doing a bit of antique shopping. Sure, we got off the beaten track a bit, but, there was a lesson learned:

"ALWAYS PRINT OUT THE BLEEPIN DIRECTIONS FROM MAPQUEST, [or your favorite map site], FOR THE RETURN TRIP HOME"