Plague Diary: In Which I Have No Cardinal Direction

[lydy]

I just want to say that the sheer number of people who have helpfully informed me that if I wish to see Lake Erie all I need to do is drive north is adorable.  The idea that I, Lydia Nickerson, could somehow use that as information that would help me choose a direction in which to point my vehicle points to a touching faith in my ability to, I dunno, read a map, maybe?  I have literally no idea what direction North is from here.  I have a vague feeling that Minneapolis is West of here and NYC is East of here, but I honestly would not want to bet money on it.

Comments

[quadong]

It's winter (I mean, it's within a month of the solstice). North is the direction when the Sun is behind you. Ok, not super helpful for precision work. I bet this is briefly useful each year nearer the arctic circle, though.

[lydy]

Ok, my extremely limited understanding of cardinal directions is that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. And now you're telling me that isn't true? I despair.

[quadong]

Alas, it's a lie to children!

It only rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west on the equinoxes. For you today, it rises approximately southeast by east, except that in a city, you probably can't see it until it is 10 degrees above the horizon, by which point it is (today) southeast of you.

In Mpls, being a bit norther than Cleveland, the Sun is even somewhat more south than that, but only a few degrees, so the compass points are the same.

In Anchorage, today the Sun rises southeast by south. By the time the Sun is 5 degrees over the horizon, it's south by east, and it only ever gets 6 degrees up.

I like the names of compass points. :-) I don't have them memorized though, but have to look up the list on Wikipedia.

[bibliofile]

So sorry! I forgot about that, if I ever knew.

(You and I have never traveled together someplace, and I've never given you directions either.)

[lydy]

Oh, I mostly mean this as a joke. But, in point of fact, I really do have trouble with cardinal directions. The first time I encountered it was as a traumatized 17 year old when I moved to Iowa. In Pittsburgh, where streets are never straight nor level, "up hill" and "slight right" are much more common as directions. Mind you, I have trouble with relative directions, as well. "Your other left!" is a thing people not uncommonly shout at me.

[dreamshark]

Oh yes, that business about "turn North and drive for 2 miles" is 100% Midwest. Being from the East Coast myself I was baffled by that when I first moved to Minnesota. Admittedly, it does work pretty well in Minneapolis, where the streets are mostly in a grid pattern. But cross the river into St. Paul and all bets are off.

But once I started making regular drives across the western prairie to visit Richard's family it all made sense. That was also when I made the astonishing discovery that on the prairie you can not only tell the direction by the sun, you can SEE THE WEATHER that is going on at all the cardinal points. Not just "Oh, it might rain later," but "Oh nuts, it's raining in Wilmar. Hope it stops by the time we get there."

[bibliofile]

Also, I come from Chicago, which is also full of grid streets. On almost any street you always have a 25% chance of heading due north.

Of course, in Chicago, instead of "drive east" I would just point in the appropriate direction. That method doesn't work so well online.

[lcohen]

you came from the west to get there. so if you recall where you came from and turn left, you should be pointed north.....

[lydy]

That was days and days ago. I have no idea where I came from, at this point. But, der Google will probably get me to the Lake, if I ask.

[calimac]

In some other circumstance, one could say "downhill," but as I recall Cleveland, that would not be particularly helpful there.

[haertstitch]

uhm try google.maps
and let it tell you where you are.
it will orient the top of the map north
and it show and tell you where to go
it can't help itself

it helps to have a huge landmark.
in chicago i'd aim at the lake or away from it
and if it was on the right
I knew north was in front of me.

[lydy]

I got my first smart phone specifically because I was terrified that some day, they would take away I94, and I would end up wandering the wilds of St. Paul forever, rather than making it home from work. (That actually did happen, one Saturday morning, where they just...blocked off 94 and I was forced to take the 280 exit. I drove around in tears for probably 30 minus before I finally ended up on the U of M campus, where I had once worked. From there, I was able to follow the bus route home. It was not the most efficient route, I suspect, but I recognized it.)

mass transit is a help

[haertstitch]

I've been trapped in the cities too
really found it frustrating.

I took very bus route I could
in Chicago in the attempt to map the city.
luckily they mostly when north to south
verses round and in spokes like busses in the cities.

Down?

[lsanderson]

Water can also be thought of as 'down,' which is not a cardinal direction

Re: Down?

[lydy]

Where I am is actually pretty flat. So I'd need to drive around, find a hill, and then go in the direction of down. I think maybe just asking der Google is more efficient. :-)

[thewayne]

While it wouldn't do you much good until you have some time in the spring or summer, west of you is an island known as Put In Bay. My wife and I honeymooned there 15 years ago. Lots of B&Bs, couple of small hotels, decent restaurants, I think a winery or two. It's the island that Oliver Hazard Perry sailed from to fight the Brits during the War of 1812, so historically significant. It also has a geode cave that you can walk in to: so if you visit, you can go to it and then tell people that you have stood inside a geode!

There's a ferry that'll take you there, during the winter the lake frequently freezes over and the locals use snowmobiles to go back and forth to the mainland.

It's a nice place if you want to do a little vacationing. On the last day of our honeymoon we did Cedar Point Amusement Park and rode all of the wooden roller coasters! It was a lot of fun. They were all pretty much walk straight on as everyone else was riding the new rides.

[lydy]

Oh, man, that sounds like SO MUCH FUN. I love rollercoasters. They are exactly the right amount of fear of height, fear of falling, fear of speed, all wrapped up in an exhilarating assurance that I will not die, and it will be over in just a very few minutes. Love love love rollercoasters.

[thewayne]

Cool!  I agree, so much fun!  And they have the largest collection of wooden rollercoasters possibly in the world!  One of them has two cars side-by-side, and they release them simultaneously so they 'race' around the track. Highly recommended.  It's about an hour west of you, and you'll pass through Elyria where we had to go to get our marriage license.  We were married in Oberlin, which is a very nice little town with an amazing restaurant.  And, as you can see by this Google Map, Cedar Point is in Sandusky which is very proximate to Put-In Bay. https://goo.gl/maps/aR9mbrkLsVNHC94X6 We did two other rides at Cedar Point, a log ride to soak Russet as she was having trouble with the heat (it was early June) and one of those slingshot things that shoots you up a column, which was kinda fun.  But we really enjoyed the rollercoasters.