Places you remember, but can't find

[webny99]

Placing this thread in Off-Topic because it's not specific to roads... Have you ever had a distinct memory of a place, but not been able to identify/remember exactly where it was?

I'm working on mapping my travels with Travel Mapping and this is happening to me with a distinct memory of an interchange somewhere in south central PA. This would have been about a decade ago, and I distinctly remember the cross road under what I thought was I-78 undergoing significant construction, and I'm pretty sure it was a newly built overpass. I was relying on this memory to help me identify where I entered I-78 because I don't remember many details about the trip, but I know I stayed east of Reading and ended up on I-78 at some point before joining I-81 and returning to the Harrisburg area. The only problem... almost every road that interchanges with I-78 has an overpass, not an underpass, so I'm kind of stuck.

Curious if anything like this has ever happened to anyone else, and if so, how you eventually figured it out or if it's still unknown to this day.

[hotdogPi]

Yes. It turned out to be in Stone Mountain, and when I went back, I realized where I was.

[NWI_Irish96]

I had a memory from very young (< 5 years old) of a house that had a mailbox, and then a very tall pole going up from the mailbox that, at the top, had a second mailbox with the words "AIR MAIL" painted on it.

Just a couple years ago, as I was on a road clinching trip, I saw that mailbox on US 27 just north of Winchester. It was still there. US 27 must have been part of the route our family took to visit my grandparents in Elkhart while we were living in Richmond, when I was aged 2-4.

[Rothman]

Yes. It turned out to be in Stone Mountain, and when I went back, I realized where I was.

"Just where was that gigantic relief sculpture of defenders of slavery?"

[hotdogPi]

Yes. It turned out to be in Stone Mountain, and when I went back, I realized where I was.

"Just where was that gigantic relief sculpture of defenders of slavery?"

It was the configuration of one of the exhibits, not the sculpture itself.

[Max Rockatansky]

The wash I barrel rolled an ATV north of Phoenix in 1999.  I know it was off AZ 74 somewhere but I never could find it when I lived in Phoenix for 13 years.

[abefroman329]

Yes. It turned out to be in Stone Mountain, and when I went back, I realized where I was.

"Just where was that gigantic relief sculpture of defenders of slavery?"

It was the configuration of one of the exhibits, not the sculpture itself.

The configuration of the laser show, where the defenders of slavery come to life and fight for the right to keep slaves?

[kphoger]

This link points to the general area of where we broke down in the Mexican desert several years ago.  Whenever I drive that stretch of highway, I know the location was near a bridge, but there are too many bridges with similar names for me to be sure where it was.  I used to be able to tell where it was in GSV based on the location of fence lines and such, but too much time has passed and too much has changed.

Probably the hardest people I've ever had to understand were a couple of hitchhikers we picked up on their way back home from working in the fields, who ended up helping us find a mechanic to replace a broken wheel bearing somewhere near here.  Listening comprehension is more important than you might think it is.

[hbelkins]

Had this happen on my trip with my brother last summer. He was trying to find places near Dillon, Mont., where he had done geological digs as a college student. He was unable to find the location where they took place.

[US 89]

There's a memory in the back of my head from way, way back that involves being in my dad's car and turning onto a road that went over a bridge, probably over some train tracks, and into a downtown area. There is a good chance it's a dream I had when I was little and never actually happened in real life...but who knows, maybe someday I'll come across it.

[GaryV]

When I was 5 we went to Florida. I have a memory, which my parents say didn't happen, of waking up in a different motel room than where we went to sleep. The curtains were different.

[Max Rockatansky]

When I was 5 we went to Florida. I have a memory, which my parents say didn't happen, of waking up in a different motel room than where we went to sleep. The curtains were different.

I had something like that happen to me when I was 4 and was taken to swimming lessons.  At the time I was terrified of water but I remember going into the pool and being submerged.  From there I recall instantly blacking out and waking up in my room that night with no memory of what happened.  Even at the time my Mom said that I just freaked out and the lesson went poorly, but nothing was really out of the ordinary.  That is the only time in my life that I can ever recall having missing memory from an event I was actively part of.

[frankenroad]

I had a memory from very young (< 5 years old) of a house that had a mailbox, and then a very tall pole going up from the mailbox that, at the top, had a second mailbox with the words "AIR MAIL" painted on it.

Just a couple years ago, as I was on a road clinching trip, I saw that mailbox on US 27 just north of Winchester. It was still there. US 27 must have been part of the route our family took to visit my grandparents in Elkhart while we were living in Richmond, when I was aged 2-4.

I remember that mailbox.   Our family used to take US-27 through Indiana to get from our home in Cincinnati to our cottage in western Michigan, before interstates were built.  I think the last year we would have gone that way was probably 1965 or 1966.

[CtrlAltDel]

When I was a child, my family drove from Chicago to Tampa most years over Easter to visit my grandparents. One time, we stopped at the Elizabethtown rest area in Kentucky. I was a bit perturbed by this, since my sister's name was Elizabeth, and why did she have a rest area named after her when I didn't have one named after me? A few years ago, that memory came back to me, and I started looking for it along I-65, and I couldn't find it, and so I gave up. And them a little while after that, I looked for it again, and couldn't find it, and then again and again at various intervals. About 6 months ago, though, I finally succeeded, thanks to Historical Aerials, since this rest area had been closed and demolished, for whatever reason. For the record, it was here.

[CoreySamson]

I remember a stretch of freeway on a trip from Louisiana to North Carolina that I'm not sure exists. I was three or four at the time. It was a grassy plains-looking flat section of freeway without many trees and at least 5 billboards in a short distance. The part that seems to make it unfeasible is that this section was in either Alabama, Georgia, or South Carolina along I-65 or I-85, which are all heavily forested. The closest analogues to this that I can find are here (too many trees) and here (not enough billboards). I had not been anywhere west of central Louisiana at that point in my life, so that rules out anything in the plains that I could have mistakenly remembered was on that NC trip.

[Ned Weasel]

I have one that's a hotel (or was).

When I was less than 10 years old, my family and I stayed at a Sheraton Inn somewhere--maybe Pennsylvania?  This was one of the most amazing hotels I had seen at the time.  It was only two or three stories, but it had a beautiful atrium, configured like a "Holidome" in that many of the rooms faced inward toward the atrium.  My grandfather stayed in a separate room from my parents and me, and his room faced into the atrium, and I think it was on an upper floor.  My parents and I were in a room that was on the first floor and faced outside, and our room was one of those that had both an exterior door and a door to an interior hallway.

I cannot for the life of me figure out exactly where this Sheraton Inn was, and Sheraton Inns no longer exist; they either stayed within the chain and were rebranded as Four Points, or they changed franchises.  I have found a few photos here and there that look similar, but I'm not sure if any of them are the one.

I am also not quite 100% certain that these two visual memories are from the same hotel, but I feel like they most likely are, because I feel like they probably came from the same day or two.

[bassoon1986]

I've got a minor one from the year 1997. We were going on a family vacation to St Louis from Shreveport. We made an overnight stop in Memphis then to St Louis the next day. Going up I-55 I remember one of us looking at the rand McNally atlas and seeing a road that looked like it either met the MS River at a bridge or a ferry crossing. I know now there was no bridge, but I feel like we were still south of Sikeston and some highway from I-55 that would have dead ended near the river. I can't remember if we saw the river or what.

So possibly the Dorena ferry to KY? Possibly MO 164?


iPhone

[bandit957]

When I was about 3 years old (about 1976), I remember seeing a tree growing in the middle of a road. I've never been able to figure out where it was.

There was one time when I was going on 3 (spring of 1976) when we went on a trip to see relatives in Philadelphia, and I saw this weird signal in the median of a highway that opened and closed like a beak. Years later, someone told me that this would have been on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and that it was actually an old railroad signal. But I've never been able to figure out exactly where it was.

In the early 2000s, I was in Cincinnati and saw a white building with numerous famous musicians and singers painted on it. They were mostly R&B (I think Stevie Wonder was among them), but it had a few other musicians too. I've never been able to find this building ever since.

[bandit957]

A few other things...

In the 1990s, we conducted several bonfires at some camp along the Ohio River. It had this little field and a few other things. It was within Campbell County, so it wasn't that far. But for the life of me, I cannot locate exactly where this was.

When I was about 7 or 8, we were on a trip somewhere and went to some museum. There was this one room there that had all these arcade-type machines. One of them had all these words printed on it, and I remember 'blah' was one of them. For years, I could not remember where this was. But about 15 or 20 years later, we went to a museum on a trip, and we went into some room, and that machine was sitting off to the side all broken down. Now I forget where this was, but it might have been in Chicago.

[bandit957]

Wait! There's more!

Back in the summer of 1979, when I was 6, I was in this class for kids that took place at the local university. It was sort of like a kindergarten and had toys and stuff. We mostly made sculptures and chewed bubble gum. I remember it had a one-way mirror that was also a window from an adjacent room.

Years later, when I was in college, I tried looking for this room. I think I may have found it, but it mostly looked like a regular college classroom then. Just a few days ago, I visited this campus, but I wasn't quite sure what building this room was in, or where the building was.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Mine was when I was a little older, actually. I was 15 and I walked out to the far edge of Duluth's Lakewalk before turning to go back to the hotel. It was nearly dark or dark outside by this point. I remember the path as it existed then being interrupted by a street, so I was walking along the section of street leading back to the path and going through this small neighborhood of run down, squalid homes. Something about this left me feeling extremely apprehensive and nervous like something wasn't right about all this. I never found this section of the path or anything that it could have been again.

Other things are just fragments of trips that I can't remember specifically where something was. I was remembering this gas station I stopped at after dark on a recent trip, but can't remember what state it was in.

[bandit957]

Something else like this: I remember when I was about 4 (about 1977-78), I was in the car, and we drove through some unfamiliar neighborhood with a lot of hills and curvy roads. I think it was very close to here, but I've never been able to figure out exactly where.

[webny99]

Other things are just fragments of trips that I can't remember specifically where something was. I was remembering this gas station I stopped at after dark on a recent trip, but can't remember what state it was in.

I try to make a mental note of exactly where I am every time I stop somewhere for food/fuel/etc. on a trip, because it annoys me not to be able to go back and find where it was. This has come in pretty handy with Travel Mapping. However, things get a lot more iffy once I go back more than about 5-6 years, leading to situations like the one in the OP.

[GaryV]

When I was either in Jr High or early High School, my family rented a motor home and went to the UP. We stayed in a campground on the St Marys River south of Sault Ste. Marie.

When I returned as an adult decades later, I couldn't find it. A few years ago I was at a township park and met someone who had lived in the area a long time. I asked, was there ever a campground near the park? Yes, it had been sold and houses built on it. We actually were very close to where the campground used to be.

Something unique about the area is that when freighters pass, the water is sucked out from the shore and then comes back in higher. I've been told it's because the freighters take up so much of the depth of the channel that they create a "hole" in the water behind them and the only way for the hole to be filled is by sucking water away from the shoreline.

There may be good reasons you can't find places you remember: they don't exist any more!

[CNGL-Leudimin]

I'm pretty sure to have seen a place somewhere in Catalonia, Spain named "Canonge", although I cannot find it now. Maybe I made it up (There's Calonge right on the coast, so maybe the confusion came from there).

The place my memory is pretty much correct about seeing, but misplaced it, is Guimareu. I knew I had seen it somewhere in Galicia, but for some reason I placed it in the province of Pontevedra instead of near Cape Finisterre.