Mapquest Shortcuts are Dangerous

Yesterday, we took a shortcut through the Army Base and found ourselves somewhere that civilians never should be. We were scared out of our minds.

My daughter and I decided to go antiquing for the afternoon and I found a little town online that had about seven antique shops within a few minutes of each other. I used mapquest to plot out the route across the Base so that we would not have to go all the way around the base to get to the other side.

Never do that! Mapquest shortcuts are dangerous!

Needless to say, it was quite the adventure, and one I would never wish to take again. We found ourselves in a desert no-mans land with warning signs on each side of us, designed to scare the living daylights out of us.

We followed the road westerdly and after about ten minutes, it became a dirt and gravel road. We saw a couple of soldiers on the side of the road and asked them if we were still on the road, and they said we were. When I told them that I had mapquested a shortcut across the Base, they laughed. They ensured us that the road did go all the way out there, but that it was a dirt road the whole way for about ten miles. Dirt roads are not that big of a deal when you live in West Virginia, so I decided to go ahead through.

I'd been on a dirt road for twenty miles before, so this would not be all that big of a deal. I was very wrong.

The road became red clay, then back to gravel. We came up to a hand painted sign that said "NO POV" and since we did not know what that meant, we continued on.

We had driven by shooting ranges and they looked very cool and there was even one unit at one of the ranges and nobody seemed to mind us driving by.

But once we crossed past where that "NO POV" sign was, everything changed. It became more desert-like and there were lots of warning signs on each side of the road. Signs that warned that duds were being explosed in that area, and signs that warned that there were guys out there doing training missions that involved shooting so you'd not want to wander through those woods.