Lost in suburbia

On Tuesday I had the rather unfamiliar (and unwelcome) experience of being lost in my own city! I have lived here for practically my whole life and I don't believe I've ever been lost before. Tuesday I was tasked with picking up a friend at the airport; I arrived about half an hour early and was having a bit of a, ahem, how shall I describe this... bladder emergency. We all know how expensive parking is at an airport, so I decided to cruise around the neighboring area in search of a convenience store. Driving westward on the Milton Proby Parkway, I eventually ended up in an area I've never been before, and then I found myself dumped onto another, larger and more busy road, heading south. I had no idea where I was. It took me a minute or two to realize that I was on Academy Boulevard! Academy is the main north/south artery of our city. This means that I was driving on our largest, busiest, most recognizable road and didn't know it. How crazy is that? Of course I've been on that stretch of Academy many times, but it's so generic that it could have been anywhere, and finding myself driving on it so unexpectedly was completely disorienting.

Here's a shot of the sound barrier wall on the Milton Proby Parkway. No offense to those who live in that neighborhood, but to a downtowner it really all looks the same out there!