That time I realized my road atlas from 2018 was steering me wrong

I was driving through rural Ohio last month trying to find a shortcut to Cleveland and kept ending up on dirt roads that dead ended at corn fields. After the third wrong turn I pulled over and actually looked at the map legend for the first time in my life. Turns out the solid red lines I thought were highways were actually just gravel roads with no pavement. Who knew maps had a whole secret language and I just never bothered to learn it. Has anyone else been burned by an outdated atlas or just me?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_tara8d agoTop Commenter

Gotta disagree here... paper maps still have their place when your phone dies or you lose signal. Yeah the legend thing is annoying but once you learn it they're pretty reliable, I've got one from 2016 that still gets me where I need to go.

hannahs717d ago

Right that map from 2016 is probably still gold too lol. Roads don't change that fast and paper maps don't run out of battery or need updates every five minutes. I keep a folded up road atlas in my glovebox for the same reason traveled halfway across the state last summer and my signal cut out for like 40 miles in the mountains just pulled over and unfolded the thing and found my route easy. Plus you can write on them with a pen to mark construction zones or good rest stops which GPS won't let you do. There's something nice about seeing the whole route laid out in front of you instead of just a little arrow moving on a screen.