Saturday, July 21, 2007

For my roadgeek friends...

I used driving directions from Google Maps today which included the following:
  • South on US 101 for 3.3 miles.
  • West on WA 108, WA 8, and US 12 for 38 miles total.
  • South (again!) on US 101 for 0.5 miles.
Yes, the directions are correct.
Yes, US 101 runs reasonably north/south in both locations.
Yes, WA 8/108 and US 12 run reasonably east/west.

The answer lies in the strange routing of US 101 between Astoria, Oregon and Olympia, Washington:
  • From Astoria, it runs north to Forks via Aberdeen (directionals read north/south).
  • From Forks, it runs east through Port Angeles to Port Townsend (directionals read east/west).
  • From Port Townsend, it runs south to Olympia via Shelton (directionals read south/north and the mile markers increase going south).
In case you're curious, we were going here.

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