Over the weekend, I saw some vehicles with Alberta licence plates (not too unusual), a couple from Manitoba (a little unusual at this time of year), one or two from Washington (again, not unusual) and one from Minnesota (very unusual).
All this served to remind me that it the time of year when we can expect more visitors to the city coming in their vehicles, rather than flying in, and that means we, as citizens of Prince George, have to be ready for them.
By this I mean, keep an eye out for them, since they may need assistance finding somewhere, but also because some of the more, shall we say, interesting aspects of traffic in Prince George may confuse them.
For instance, many years ago I had an uncle who came to Prince George with his family one summer. They knew we lived just off Fifth Avenue, so from downtown, they found Fifth Avenue and headed out.
And rather quickly found themselves doing an about-face and ending up right back downtown.
After a couple more attempts, they phoned for directions. We told them to go down to Second and head west. It would become Third, which would then become Fifth.
Things have improved in some respects, but we still have intersections where each of the four corners has a different combination of streets in the address. Like where Massey becomes Winnipeg at the same corner as Carney becomes 20th.
We also have a few places where the name we give them can lead a visitor astray, especially if they rely on GPS.
I had one woman from out of town coming in for an interview at CFIS, and she knew we were at Studio 2880 on 15th Avenue.
Unfortunately, 2880 15th Avenue is the big building in the complex, and we’re in the small one.
Luckily, she had left enough time to phone for more specific directions (and it was just next door, after all).
