Have you ever driven down a road for awhile and then realized it was not the road you thought it was? What a pain! Sometimes you need to backtrack a long way. When this happens, you might wish that a sign like this would have been posted early along the route.
“On a recent jaunt through Utah to visit most of the National Parks in the state we stayed a few days in Panguitch, Utah, near Bryce Canyon. Highway 89, which goes south through the town, makes a 90 degree turn east at the one major intersection.
“However the street, and later the road, continues south as another route, and soon climbs steeply into the hills as a twisty road to eventually come to Cedar Breaks and a ski area at an elevation of about 10,000 feet.
“Apparently a lot of people miss the turn in town and end up on this road instead. If you are driving an RV (or transport truck) this could cause a great difficulty as there are hardly any places to turn around until you reach the top and the going is steep and difficult for all but smaller vehicles.”
As a result, he says, just outside of town shortly before this road starts its climb, this sign is posted. Adjacent to it is a large gravel turnaround area so RVers and truckers can reverse and get back on the right road.
HAVE YOU EVER driven the “wrong” road and ended up way out of your way? Please leave a comment.
This article originally appeared in an earlier version of this website in 2012.
Many times over the years of RVing we have made wrong turns that were a puzzle to figure out. Two memorable ones were in the mountains and forests of North Carolina and Tennessee. North Carolina we, well I mean my DH, had to back our 36′ fifth wheel nearly a quarter of mile until we found a spot to turn around. The most recent was this past summer, somehow we missed our turn and ended up going through the Cherokee National Forest which took us nearly three hours out of our way. Of course there was no cell or GPS service. Thank goodness we do have maps with us. It may have been hairy but the scenery was gorgeous. Only mishap was the fridge that opened and everything ended up on the floor including a 18 pack of egg. Thankfully we have learned over the years that there’s only one thing to do, laugh!
Leaving Ventura ca north on 101 my destination was Yosemite. I missed 126 E. Lola rerouted me to 33 N. What a nightmare. If anyone else makes this mistake turn around and go back to 126 E. Do not let Lola, Syri or Alexa send you over 33 N.
Yes coming across southern MO on a 2 lane US highway my natural blonde that lives inside my phone giving directions tells me to turn left in 2 miles, so being the obedient idiot I make the turn onto the designated road which turns out to be a county road. After 12 miles with no road signs with info as to where we are going I found a dry field that had been combined recently where I could turn our 38’ motorhome and toad around. Getting back to the main highway I made the left turn and 17 miles later we came into Joplin, Mo. 3 and a half years later I always check the map if I’m not sure of where she tells me to turn when driving the motorhome.
Absolutely, especially in parts of Michigan in the U.P. where all roads, including dirt roads for snowmobiles, are named and are on the GPS, leading one to take those “roads” to campgrounds. 🙁
Cedar Breaks is such a nice view and the road does continue on where you could eventually end up at Bryce Canyon. We came from Bryce Canyon to Cedar Breaks. We found it to be an interesting drive with the Lava flow area and the wonderful view at Cedar Breaks. We were driving our Jeep Grand Cherokee so it was no problem.
Couldn’t get on I-15 S to get to the RV park and ended up on the Las Vegas strip during rush hour in a 40ft motorhome towing a car yesterday. Ended up following city buses to make our way out unscathed.
And the President being in town had nothing to do with increased traffic!
I’ve made wrong turns or didn’t make the right turns, but the street itself or the neighborhood usually tell me I goofed. I don’t worry, though, because I know that about 95% of the time my GPS will get me back on track as soon as possible. I don’t think traveling solo full time would be possible for me without my GPS.
So true. Sometimes I envy those that travel with someone who can look at next exit, google, paper map, etc and help navigate. My Garmin doesn’t always understand me when I ask for something. Just the other day I said find Chili’s and it kept bringing up Charley’s! Doesn’t understand Flying J either.
My Dear Bride is less dependable than the GPS so I check a current paper map before I even start the RV. Then I check the route the GPS is going to take me and make adjustments. Usually end up where I want to be.
In 2017 we were traveling to the Casper, WY, area for the solar eclipse. after leaving Yellowstone and traveling through Grand Teton Nat’l Park, we thought we were headed the right way, but ended up in Jackson Hole. We had to turn around and wasted a total of about 100 miles. Turns out, the intersection where we turned toward Jackson had no markings showing Casper was the other way. Our GPS was no help, as it didn’t tell us which way to turn, and it never did figure out which direction to send us. Thanks, Google Maps!
A couple of years ago we were on a caraven going through Pennsylvania, the caraven was broken down into about five groups when travelling to make it more manageable on the roads. The leader of our group received a call from another group telling us to be sure to take the detour when going through a town we were heading into. Unfortunately we were not told which detour to take; we took the first detour which put us on an old railroad bed in the hills, a gravel road, then we must have taken a wrong turn, as the gravel road changed to a dirt road then a farmers lane. We ended up having to back up our 34′ trailers about half a mile before we could turn around. It still is something to talk about!
While attempting to travel east from Toronto, CA toward Maine, while passing through Quebec Province we were suddenly in a construction area but all the signage was in French. We took an exit and wound up in downtown streets and came around a corner to discover a clearance bar prior to a tunnel. VERY fortunately we fit under the bar and eventually made our way back east. All the rest of Canada has road signs in both French and English but in Quebec you only get French. Lesson learned, we avoid Quebec at all costs now. 40′ motorhomes towing cars do not navigate small streets easily and often cannot be turned around without disconnecting and tying up traffic for awhile.
Bob—the fact that the signage is in French shouldn’t be as much of an issue if you take the time to stop at any welcome centre and get a translation of the most key sign words. Actually travel thru Quebec is quite painless even with a very large motorhome.
Going (class A with toad) to a city CG in Crete, Nebraska, down a narrow not-quite-2-lane road, came to a bridge and sign that said “Weight limit 3 tons”. My wife was driving and asked “How much do we weigh?” I replied “About 7 tons.” She replied “I’ll drive fast.” We made it OK, and I sent the city an email suggesting a sign at the beginning of the road would be nice.
Wood plank bridge floor on County Road F!
State highways in CA definitely need signs like that. Many of CA’s State “highways” are just city streets that turn frequently onto other streets and the signage ranges from tiny to nonexistent. I wish I had a dollar for every time I missed one of those turns and wound up on the wrong street.
CA is one of those “highways” that has lousy signage. It makes a turn in Julian I managed to miss the first time I drove through there. It makes other turns in other small towns. It becomes a real freeway going west in Escondido but, it makes a few turns in downtown Escondido with lousy signage before it emerges on the east side of town (I suspect what signage that is there is only because of the Wild Animal Park east of town).
The road signs in Panguich, UT are easy enough to see (especially compared to CA’s) yet they had the decency to post that one sign there (which I never saw since the friend I traveled with and I had no trouble finding our way through town). Btw, the Flying M cafe on the northern border of Panguitch was a great place to eat the last few times I was through there (around four or five years ago).
89 could use some better signage where it goes through Kanab. 89 takes a left in Kanab when heading south. If you go straight through town, it becomes 89A. When going north on 189 in UT, i makes a hard left in a small town between Provo and I-80 (I don’t remember which town). The first time I was on that road, my friend was driving and it kept getting smaller and less “highway looking” with no signage to indicate we were still on the highway. When it made the left turn, the “highway” looked like a small city street and the turn to the left looked like a major town street. Again no signage to indicate whether to turn or continue straight into what looked like a residential street. We stopped to get directions at that point because we were convinced we were lost. I’ve been on that stretch several times since that first time and UT never did put up any signage.
Some people just shouldn’t get off the freeway.
While traveling in Vermont last year we came across this sign. It has become one of my favorites! https://photos.app.goo.gl/fyUY67H7cXodduEd8
I stopped and took a photo of that sign too. There should be many more like that.
We saw this sign when we were there in 2010, on our way to Cedar Breaks, not pulling our 5th wheel – it was parked at the KOA. Thought it was pretty neat to have that sign there to help others not encounter a huge problem! And Cedar Breaks is beautiful, along with everything else in and around Panguitch!
Ended up backing the 35′ fifth wheel through an opening in the fence used only for combines and into a cornfield just far enough to reverse direction of travel in southwest Iowa. I grew up there and should have known better than to take that road!
I’m gonna make this short, Pennsylvania has stupid sign laws . So the signs you see that you think are official are illegal ( according to ranger gord) and the ones you’re looking for are either non existent or placed in not the normal locations. Oh and state parks and the name of the actual campground you are looking for seems to be a very well kept secret. Done with Pennsylvania!
We were trying to follow Roue 66 in New Mexico where it gets pretty squirrelly at times. We ended going about 20 miles down the wrong road before we figured out our mistake. We turned around and found the right road. The end result was that we drove through the same thunderstorm three times.
We took a wrong turn on a two-lane country road. Finding a place to turn around was next to impossible. We ended up finding a spot but had to unhook our toad to get turned around. I’m sure there are many among us that have had to do the same! =)
More than once, usually at an unmarked dead end without anywhere but the middle of the street to turn around.
The good ‘ol Garmin GPS has lead me astray on numerous occasions.
The GMC “Nav” system couldn’t navigate it’s way out of a wet paper bag.
We’re having pretty good luck with Waze on a tablet, until it thinks you’re driving backwards on the other side of the road, but it’s the best so far. – lol
Good police radar reports too, except, they have already moved some of the time.
Important to play CLOSE attention to GPS instructions – “Keep right” and “turn right” can yield VERY different destinations. 🙂
I can relate. Sometimes I would strangle Siri given the chance!