Maps confound me. There, I said it. I know my way around Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace really well, but anywhere else I’m lost.
If you take me to Eastern Washington I get even more disoriented. Case in point, on my first ever trip to Lake Chelan we took a break for lunch. “We’re stopping in Leavenworth?” I asked, surprised. “I had no idea we’d drive through Leavenworth.”
My husband, who’s a Washington native, couldn’t believe I was serious. Being married to a former Californian can frustrate even the most patient of persons.
The irony is once we drove past Cashmere I started to feel right at home. It was brown, brown and more brown. If you packed in pink houses so close together you could hear your neighbor sing in the shower, Eastern Washington would be Southern California.
Which reminds me of the first time I went to Yakima and it was explained to me that apples are only harvested once a year. I was stunned. In retrospect I can tell how ignorant I was, but you’ve got to understand, in San Diego oranges and lemons grow in backyards year round. In college I used to pick kumquats on my way to class.
When we stopped at Rocky Reach Dam on the way home from Chelan, I inadvertently annoyed my husband again by saying “This is the Columbia River? I thought it was the Wenatchee.”
“Please stare at the map until you know where we are,” grumbled my husband from the driver seat.
I was studying the map, but clearly I’m spatially challenged. Thank goodness for GPS. Our Garmin is set to a female British accent which helps me feel knowledgeable instead of pathetic.
My husband can navigate the farm roads of Snohomish in the dead of night. I on the other hand, get lost every time I drive to Brier. And Ballard. And Bothell. And Bellevue. OK, please keep me away from all cities that start with B.
A couple of months ago my husband took the kids on a hike to Tonga Ridge, just past Skykomish. I nodded like I knew where that was, but my husband wasn’t fooled.
“Jenny, you’ve been to Skykomish. You remember where that is, right?”
I looked back at him blankly. “I can pronounce it. Does that count?”
Once, I was trying to go from Everett to Snohomish across the trestle, but I got on I-5 at the wrong place and ended up in Marysville. Then, driving through Marysville to Highway 9, I became really lost. I was distracted by pretty houses and big green yards. Whenever I saw an orange Herald box, I’d wonder “What would these newspaper subscribers think if they realized the ‘I Brake for Moms’ lady was driving by their house and had no idea where she was going?”
No, wait. Don’t tell me. My husband is probably thinking it too.
Jennifer Bardsley is an Edmonds mom of two. Find her on Twitter @jennbardsley and at www.heraldnet.com/ibrakeformoms and teachingmybabytoread.com.
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