Americas 7: The Maze

Once we missed our road turn. Having no navigation, we had to go off the highway, find some knowledgeable locals, ask them for the right way and find our way back.

It was not easy to communicate with them. They spoke to us as if we were born in the same quarter: »Yes, it's no problem, you have several possibilities: from the highway 127 you go to the turnpike, on US 77 south, after about twenty miles on Interstate 76 east, and then to your Interstate 95.« We stared in amazement, asked again, wrote down what we heard and got lost several more times. It took us scores of miles to finally find the promised Interstate 95 south, towards Miami.

 But the eventful day wasn’t over yet. Before I became familiar with the system of marking directions in the confusion of the highways in New Jersey, it exploded behind me as if I had driven onto a landmine.

to be continued

text & photo: Janin Klemenčič

Through the Americas 6: On the road

At the police station, the staff was, again, very complacent. 

First, they kindly sent me to another station, saying that the parking of the tow-away service wasn't under their jurisdiction, but then they gave up because the car had been in their district before being towed-away. A young black woman in a dark-blue uniform unwillingly wrote the report and gave me the copy. Maybe it would help!

With a delay of several hours, we finally started our voyage, but on the road, life wasn’t too easy for us either. In America, the road signs don't show the names of the cities that they lead to, but the numbers of the highways. It sometimes drove me to desperation. On a highway out of New York, you’ll never see written that it leads to Washington or to Miami, instead you can read marks like: I 95 south, US82 west, Hwy.122 east, and so on. The interstate highways, from the East to the West Coast, are marked with even numbers, while those going from the north to the south are marked with odd numbers. Near towns, the roads get an additional mark: an even number, if they bypass the centre, and an odd number, if they go through the town. So I 95 can temporarily become I 495 or I 595.

to be continued

text & photo: Janin