Valkyre

Lost in L.A.

I've only lived here all my life, so you can excuse me for getting lost in downtown Los Angeles.... (Or, maybe I should change the title to "The Curse of the Yahoo Map!") Helena, my oldest daughter needed to go to a cultural museum as part of a college class. We found a Japanese American Museum that was located in the downtown area. I got the address and went to Yahoo maps to get directions. Now, Mike taught me something awhile ago. Look at the maps from two different websites, like Yahoo and maybe Mapblast or MapQuest. Sometimes another one will give you better directions, or you can make your own from a combination of the two. I neglected to do this..... It has been years since I've been to downtown L.A. I used to work there about 20 years ago. Occasionally, we've taken the north bound Harbor Freeway through downtown, but I haven't actually been on the streets of the downtown area for a long time.

According to the map, I was to go north bound on the Harbor Freeway (the 110). From the Harbor, I was supposed to take an exit to another freeway, the Ventura Freeway (the 101). Well, I wanted to go south on the 101 freeway, but the only exit I could see was north. And, there were no signs on the 110 freeway saying anything about an exit for the 101 south. But, this was the exit that Yahoo maps told me to take. Actually, at this point, there were two exits that were actually going to three different freeways.... What I was supposed to do was take the north bound 101 exit and eventually there would have been a south bound 101 exit, I guess maybe it was going to branch off or something, I don't know. I'm not familiar with this area. Now, this is where is gets weird. I didn't want to go south on the 101 freeway, I only wanted to go to the south bound exit, where there would be an exit for this particular street in the downtown area that I wanted. You could even see it on the map. So, of the two choices, I picked the wrong one, of course. I figured if the one direction went north, I obviously wanted to go down the opposite ramp, because that would take me south, right? Nope. I realized after we were slowly heading east out of the dowtown area, that this was not the South 101. It was a different freeway. So, I got off at the next offramp and promptly got back on the freeway that I had just been on, but now I was heading west. I again saw signs for the 101 freeway that I wanted to take, but somehow, ended up in the north bound lanes, when I wanted to go south. So, I got off again and promptly started heading south again. But, I didn't see the street that I wanted. I could see some other streets that were on the map, but not the particular street that I was looking for..... As I mentioned above, this particular street was only accessible from the south bound on ramp that branched off the north bound on ramp from the other freeway, the Harbor freeway (110). Confused now!? So was I! ARGH!!!!! I got off at the next off ramp which dropped me into downtown L.A. The museum was located on 1st street. 1st street runs east and west. I was on a north/south street and headed south. 1st street was the first street I hit when I went south. And, of course, I turned in the wrong direction. But, since this was a Saturday, I was able to make a u-turn. We found the place, no problem. $2.50 to park all day. After we left the museum, I tried to back track. This time, I wanted to go north on the 101. We passed the south on ramp.... We did see the north bound on ramps. But, they were behind some barricades that had been set up. Rats!!!! I drive around, try to find some major streets. Found one that I was sure had been an exit from the freeway and hoped that it would have an entrance. Sure enough! There were freeway signs. I followed them and ended up right back at the blocked off street again! After screaming rather loudly, and amusing my daughter to no end, I took a different path and found the proper entrance to the freeway. And, we got home safely and without further incident. (Thank god!!!!)