Various travel stupidities...

I don't know if these count as stupidities or just cheapness, but they are annoying nevertheless.

I'm driving my elderly, deaf, mobilility-challenged mother to Wyoming via Texas, so she can visit her sister who lives there. So this is not a picnic.

I'm currently driving through the state of Tennessee, on W40.

My mom wanted to stop at some souvenir shop to pick up a cup or something. I didn't want to do this in Nashville, which is a large city. I'm using Yahoo driving directions and I don't want to get too far off the beaten track. Too many one way streets and strange dead ends and traffic in big cities. So, I figured I'd get her one in a small city.

So we're driving along, and I see a sign for a particular city. There's also a blue sign that says "Tourist Info." So I'm thinking, well, I'll go to this "Tourist Info" place, and maybe they'll have cups and t-shirts on sale.

So, I get off the interstate and follow the signs. There's exactly one. Just as the exit road comes to the city road, there's a sign pointing to the right. So I turn, and expact to see a Tourist Info building on my right, within a mile or so. Not so. I'm driving, and I'm driving, and I don't see anything. Finally I figure out that it must be in the middle of the city - and frankly I don't have time to spend 15 minutes driving into a city to find a Tourist Info place that may or may not have what I want. Also, it's taking me further from the highway, and since I have a bad sense of direction, this makes me nervous. What if, as I get further into the city, there's yet more arrows pointing to yet more roads, until I'm thoroughly confused?

So I turned around while I had a chance and got back on the highway.

What they should have, on these tourist info signs, is the mileage of how far away the attraction or tourist info place is.

Why do I say attraction?

Well, a similar thing happened an hour or so later. I see a sign that says, Tennessee's largest independent book store, next exit. So I take that exit. And then, nothing. No more signs. And I'm driving past an outlet mall, but then, nothing but grass on either side of the road. So, is this road going to take me deep into a city to find this bookstore? How deep into the city? I wanted to spend 30 minutes browsing in a book store, I don't have 30 minutes to waste looking for the place, first.

If the mileage had been on the sign, I could have made my decision then, did I have time to go to it.

So that's pretty annoying. And of course it can't be changed -- that would cost money the state probably doesn't have. But you'd think they'd have put the mileage on these signs when they first did them.

Bait and Switch
Then, as I was driving down this road that had the outlet mall, I see a sign that says "Tourist Info." Now, when you see a sign like that, you think you're going to get a big building with a clerk who can give you touirst info. Or, if its inside a mall like this was supposed to be, you'd still get a clerk.

No so. What I saw were two small racks, one empty, one full of brochures. The one that was empty said "This space for rent." So soon, this "Tourist info" place will only have one rack!

But in any event, it was underwhelming. When you have two state-put-up blue signs saying "Tourist Info" you're expecting more than a single 5 X 5 rack of brochures.

What I'm thinking is that there was a large tourist info office in there, but that it closed and the two racks were put there so the city wouldn't have to take down the blue signs. But, it was underwhelming. And, there was no brochure for the Sherlock bookstore, so that establishment struck out again.