You can't turn left on Market St.

Sometimes the best laid plans go straight to hell in a handbag. I was in Philly, home of my favorite sports team, on a business trip yesterday with my co-worker Andrea. We had a nice "productive" visit to our host site, and had planned to get out of town in time to beat the 3:00 rush hour traffic. Our plan was quite simple.....get headed the right direction on Market St., find 8th or 9th street, turn left and head to 676, eventually to link up to 76 and home. Travelling through a grid based system is usually fairly easy. Only it seems the boneheads that set the traffic patterns do not allow LEFT TURNS on Market street until you hit 5th street. Unfortunately, the 5th street left drops you onto 676 THE WRONG WAY over a bridge heading into lovely Camden, NJ, with no chance to turn around.

Now Camden is one of those towns that you don't want to drive through, let alone spend any time in. So we figured we'd turn around at the first exit and get back on 676 going back to Philly, right? WRONG. Just like the old R.E.M. song - "You Can't Get There From Here". We could see 676, smell 676, practically taste 676 (although that might have been the Camden air), but we could NOT get back in the right direction. So after spending about 15 min. getting turned left right and center, we got back on and drove about 5 more miles and fortunately caught another bridge back into Philly. The problem was, we were on the wrong side of Philly when 3PM hit, and our trip took a bit longer than anticipated.

I suppose people who travel that way all the time are familiar with these traffic patterns, but being from "out of town", I got hosed royally. A big thanks to Andi for not beating the tar out of me for getting us sort of lost!

Well, as of 7AM today I have been a bachelor (of sorts). Time to round up the boys and round up some rounds!!!! Until tomorrow......