Google Maps I Hate You

Juno isn't mad. She's just so disappointed.

Saturday night, I joined a colleague and some students to visit the Christmas display at White Hall plantation. The house was the home of Cassius Clay, a Kentuckian who was justly famous for his politics and his influence on the area.

Anyway, White Hall is out a country road, off a small exit. I wanted to be sure I knew where I was going, because it was dark and snowy. Good weather for Christmas fun, bad weather to be lost in the dark.

Google Maps to the rescue. I found the map, saw that it showed White Hall on Clay Lane (makes sense!) off Exit 97/ state highways 25 and 421. That all seemed reasonable. So I wrote down the directions and off I went.

Oops. Stop me if you've heard this before.

Wrong exit. Wrong road, miles away, directions completely wrong. That's it, in a nutshell. White Hall is off of exit 95, it's not on Clay Lane (although the guides say you can get to the house using "a farm road" if you can find it. Apparently, I'm not the first to get confused by Google.), and I didn't need to turn onto 25/421. Thank goodness for those brown Historic Places signs, or I would still be driving around in the dark. Except it's brilliantly sunny today, but you understand my point.

White Hall was lovely, and I especially appreciated the fact that they deliberately emphasized the fact that most Christmas "traditions" were invented in the 19th century for commercial reasons (trees, ornaments, gifts, cards, Santa, decorating the house, etc. Drinking alcohol and singing were ancient traditions, though, dating to pagan times.). Kudos to White Hall for pointing out that the traditions the Clays honored in that house were born at nearly the same time as the house.

I was also amused to see matzoh on the holiday table. The placard describing the foods didn't explain, so I asked a guide. "Oh, they needed to fill the table so they put that out. It's not historic." I kind of liked the fact that there was a Jewish flatbread from a completely different holiday in a completely different season on the table. It added a bit of zest to all those rolls and chickens.

The site cemented my affections by offering hot cider, coffee, and cookies to all visitors in an outbuilding. That's the kind of sweet, personal touch that would bring a lot more people out to historic places if only their staff had as much creativity. It worked, too. There must have been 25 people in there when we were there, at dinnertime on a Saturday night! People were coming through the door with 4 and 5 kids, parties of adults, couples, anyone you can imagine.

So. To sum up: White Hall, good. Google Maps, bad. Everyone likes cookies.

The end.