Monday, April 30, 2007

Directions again

I had to go to Cranberry this weekend to pick up a rocking chair from craigslist. Here are the directions I got in email. This is after I explained that I am coming from the city and I have never been to Cranberry before.

Right when you get off on Rt. 228 there is a big hotel - Marriott if you continue past that towards Mars - there is a shopping center with Target (first store).

I call her and explain that I don't know where Rt. 228 is; I'm coming from the city on I-279. Here's the phone conversation:

"So, you take the exit off of 79 (to husband) Which exit does she take? The new one or the old one? (To me again) Take the new Cranberry exit off of 79. There's a Marriott right there, Target is down the street."

Thankfully, I know where 79 is, so we take 279 to 79. There is a sign that says "Cranberry next 2 exits". One exit is labeled Cranberry, the other is labeled something else. Since we're taking the "new" Cranberry exit, we assume that is the one that says "Cranberry". We take it and see a Marriott. Cool. There's lots of big box stores, so now we look for Target. We drive half a mile, no Target. There is a sign to "Mars", but it's turning toward the right, which is odd since based on the directions, Mars should be away from the highway, not towards it. We call her and tell her where we are: Marriott, Giant Eagle, Toys R Us, and Walmart are all here. We give a street name at the intersection. We get these directions:

Them: Ok, just continue until you see the Olive Garden and turn left.
Us: Is there a street name?
Them: Umm, Cranberry Commons Drive or something.

We see no Olive Garden, but there is a "Cranberry Drive". So we turn left. Nothing. We go back and pull into the Toys R Us parking lot. Call again.

"Ok, we'll just meet you there at Toys R Us. Give us 5 minutes to get over there."

WTF? 5 minutes? Where in the world is this Target?

We find out later from a friend who lives there that there are TWO Marriotts. Also, the other exit, the one that was labeled something else, was the "new" Cranberry exit. "New" is a relative term apparently; the exit is at least 20 years "new".

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