Warping around the Buffalo area

BUFFALO (?) - I left HSBC Arena around 11:45 p.m. Friday night and attempted to find my way back to my hotel in Blasdell, which is near Orchard Park (home of the Buffalo Bills). Basically, I am about 15 minutes south of the arena.

Well, last night -- and turning into early this morning -- I had no idea where I was, but that is normal for me. I tend to stray onto roads I don't know in my never-ending quest for finding the ultimate back road to avoid traffic. However, what happened last night still has me befuddled (and that has to do with the warping that I will explain later on).

I wanted to take I-190 South from downtown Buffalo to the exit for Route 62. However, the exit doesn't take you right to 62. Once you get off, there is no sign telling you which way to turn. But I went right and then saw a sign saying 62 was straight ahead. Well, once you get to the intersection where you are supposed to turn, there is no sign and I wound up taking this road back to downtown Buffalo because, well, I was afraid to stop the car where I was.

So I get back on I-190 South at the very entrance I had just taken about 15 minutes earlier. I repeated everything above, but this time did make the left turn onto 62 or Bailey Ave. I stayed on 62 for some time, but I couldn't get a sense of where I was. But then I came to a stop light and the road to my left was McKinley Parkway, the same road name where my hotel is, so I made a left.

Well, it became clear pretty quickly that this wasn't the same McKinley Parkway I was looking for. But I wound up getting onto an Abbott Road, which I had seen on the map I have in my car as being pretty close to where I wanted to be. I eventually came to McKinley Parkway -- again -- and this time made a right turn.

Now, this is where I feel that I somehow warped to the other side of Buffalo. I was driving on what I thought was McKinley Parkway and started feeling that I was not on the same road that I was looking for, but I pressed on. But then I looked at a street sign and I was suddenly on Broadway. Then, I realized that downtown Buffalo was about two miles DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME.

Back downtown for a third time in about 45 minutes, I managed to find signs for Route 5, which is the route I had taken to get to the arena from my hotel. However, I couldn't find a sign for Route 5 when I left the arena and tried the different approach. So I just took 5 West to get back to my hotel.

But why do I feel I warped? Well, I looked at the map this morning to see how I messed up...and it blew my mind. The roads I remember from last night were Bailey Ave., Abbott Road, Potters Road, McKinley Parkway, Route 62, Route 354 and South Park Ave. All of those roads are south and southeast of downtown Buffalo...except Broadway, which is NORTH-NORTHEAST OF DOWNTOWN BUFFALO.

There would have been at least two main highways I would have needed to cross in order to get from where I was and where I ended up, but yet these highways were nowhere to be found. I have no logical explanation for how this happened other than that I drove through a cosmic wormhole and warped halfway across the city of Buffalo.

You can kind of get an idea of what I am talking about by looking at the map below.

Of course, I could have avoided all this if I had just taken the New York Thruway, which has an exit about a mile from the hotel. But then I would have had to pay a toll and I wouldn't have had this long blog entry.