General Store - 1, Mapquest - 0

We were headed up to Vermont on Monday to visit a friend of my son. His parents graciously agreed to put us up for a few days so we could unwind from New York in general and Book Expo in particular. To prepare for the 5 hour drive, I put my address and their address in Mapquest. The first 70 miles I rejected out of hand. I agreed that I should probably take I-87, but not by slogging over the GWB. I have my own ways of catching I-87 North. After that, everything seemed to fall into place. I had to change highways about 15 times once I got onto the local roads. That's good because we had enough stress driving through tropical storm Barry. Finally, we had it licked. We were in their town. All we had to do was drive .8 of a mile and turn on Butts Hill Road, except that it didn't seem to be there. We made a left on some other road, but that wasn't it. Finally, I decided to head back to town and ask at the General Store (they had a library but it wasn't open at the time). The store people looked at my directions and told me 'You don't want to drive on Butts Hill Road. Not unless you have a four wheel drive and a death wish." Not only did she know our hosts, but she knew what they ate last night and their dog's state of health. They let us use the phone to call Bob's friend, and we were given perfect directions. Their house was half a block off the main road. The Mapquest directions were not just wrong but horribly, hopelessly, mind-bogglingly wrong. Next day the general store got a big sale, and Mapquest got probation until further notice.