None of mine top that NYC story, but I have three memorable ones.
First, it was my very first solo trip. I had driven the same route with a trainer, but driving for yourself is a world of difference. That was the night I learned to READ SIGNS. Directions said to take 29 south, so I came upon 29 south, and got off. Went about a block before I realized I wasn't in Kansas. Nothing looked right. (Because I was on 29 business.) So I decided to turn around by going around the block.
Turn right. Turn right. Turn right. Cul-de-sac. :dung:
So I had to blindside out of this residential neighborhood with parked cars everywhere at 2:00 in the morning, at a point in my career when I could still only barely hit a dock straight, let alone blindside out of a tight mess like that. I must have climbed out of that truck a thousand times that night.
Next story. Bad directions in the Hillbilly made no sense, so I pulled into a Burger King or something and called the guy. Turn here, follow this road to the end, turn right, yadda blah.
So I followed the road to the end of the yellow lines, but it wasn't actually the end of the road. It went through. So I wasn't sure what to do, and I went through too, onto the part with no lines. Made it around about five hairpin curves when some guy in a house comes running at me pinwheeling his arms frantically.
"DRIVER! STOPPPP!!! You're trying to get to [thusandsuch] aren't you? That guy can't give directions. The last guy made it around that next turn there, and it took three cranes to get his truck out of the ravine. Back up."
So I had to back a couple three miles of twisty kiss your ass country road with fourwheelers flying all around me, but nothing like that NYC misadventure I don't imagine.
Third one, directions said to take highway such and thus. Check. Turn left on Someroad at a McDonald's and a supermarket (Giant maybe?). McDonald's, check. Supermarket, check. Left, check. Now turn left on 7th street.
So I'm going up there, and the streets all have names, not numbers, but this is PA, so who the hell knows. In two blocks, I might be in three different towns. So I keep going, looking for 7th street. Nope. Nope. Nope.
I come to a very hard choice. The road dead ends ahead, but the turn to the right or the left is insanely tight, with a telephone pole on either corner, and cars parked up either side of the street right to the edge of the intersection. I look up ahead, and spy a cul-de-sac. Cool. I had a 45' trailer and single-axle cabover, and I could turn around in a car-sized cul-de-sac when pressed.
So I eased off the pavement and up the little cobblestone street to the cul-de-sac. But it wasn't a cul-de-sac, it was a damn gravel loop through a CEMETERY!
Uh oh. :shock:
So I put it in reverse to back back down the hill and through that intersection. Went back a few feet. POINK! POINK! KA-PLOINK! THUNK!
Various cables dangling in the road. I got under them going up because of the slope of my air shield, but then my air shield tore them off on the way backwards. Everything will be OK as long as I don't announce my presence to all the neighbors who were just watching TV, and who are now listening to static. (But on the bright side, they can't call the cops either.
)
So I continued backing back, and I could see tons of cross traffic on all the side streets, so I decided to try that turn from hell. I forget what all I did on that turn, but after some ridiculous effort, I managed to get around that horrible corner without trading paint. I think I did scrape a telephone pole or two, but I didn't knock anything over, or do any noticeable damage to the trailer.
Worked my way back to that big parking lot, and went in to call the boss to tell him what just happened.
"Was the street posted no trucks?"
"No. But I bet it will be tomorrow!"
"Get the hell out of there. Those lines were supposed to be 15' off the ground, and they weren't. Roll."
So I'm walking back to my truck from the pay phone (cell phone was years away), and this little old Yankee man in a pickup drives up to me.
"Hey. You tore down my @#%@#% cable TV."
"Yes sir. I sure did. I just got off the phone with the police. I reported the incident, and I'm going to wait here for law enforcement to arrive, and levy any applicable fines. Have a great day sir, and I apologize for any inconvenience."
He drove off. My customer got there with their sixwheeler to pick up their one lousy piece. I unloaded that, and got the hell out of dodge.
I never did find that store. Every time I had to go there, I made them meet me in that parking lot. They bitched about it, but they always did it.