Friday

I hurried: got up, showered, ate a few fistfuls of cereal, then left town following the best route I know to the highway: I-395 at Glebe Street in Arlington, heading south. Traffic was icky--not stopped cold between DC and Richmond like sometimes, but pretty bad. I'd planned around actual rush hours, but it still took almost five hours to hit Durham. Here, MapQuest steered me to exit 177-B instead of -A, and it took even more time getting turned back around heading north up the highway toward my hotel. I guess MapQuest got confused between Hillsborough and Hillandale Streets. Fair enough. I always get lost in Durham, too, where all street names sound the same. Consider the directions to the Carolina Theater from my hotel, driven in a mad rush minutes after I finally checked in: right on Roxboro, right on Mangum, left on Markham, right on Morgan. Except Roxboro changes into Mangum. Except I was still looking for the left when I stopped at the Morgan Street light and had to turn across three lanes. And this is the part of Durham that I know pretty well. I used to come to this area regularly. But it's different every time I'm here. Anyway, I was almost late for tonight's first movie, even though I'd hurried. After the second movie,* I tried reversing my route, but the roads are all renamed the opposite way. This time I found Markham, but it changed into Hillsborough and deposited me at I-95, exit 177-B again. I knew how to get home from there, but after six hours the exit was now arc-lit, filled with construction traffic, and I dodged orange barrels exiting at Hillandale. See? I caught them changing the roads when they thought I wasn't looking. Somebody tell MapQuest. [Cavin]