For Newcomers, All Roads Lead To...Athens?

Since I moved to Illinois, I've gotten a lot of questions about where I'm from after people have noticed my accent (not that I HAVE one, mind you- Y'ALL got accents runnin' out your ears, on the other hand). Quite often, after I've answered "East Tennessee" (and yes, there IS a difference), the person I'm talking to will say something like, "Oh,I LOVE it down there! We go every year to (Dollywood / Gatlinburg / the Smokies)!" Then, they'll often follow up with "What are you doing up HERE?"

Now, understand, I don't mind the question. Tennessee is pretty much unquestionably God's country, but this is really a pretty cool place to be, too. Most people from the Midwest go down there and go ga-ga over the mountains (a reasonable reaction), but for me, it was every bit as interesting to come up here where you can see a kazillion miles in all directions. It's just a thing about where you grew up.

My lovely wife was raised here in Central Illinois, but, luckily for me, she took a job in Tennessee. We met there, got married, and lived our first few years together there. She loved that whole area, but I would estimate that she was lost about 75% of the entire time we lived there.

Out of necessity, roads down there conform to routes dictated by mountains, rivers, and lakes. A long, straight stretch of highway is a fairly rare commodity, and, unless you've been there for a long time, it IS easy to get pretty disoriented. She used to tell me that, once we moved to Illinois, I would never get lost because everything's laid out like a grid. Her reasoning was that if I could find my way around the twists, turns, ups, and downs of the southern Appalachians, the Midwest would be a breeze.

That made perfect sense, and she was almost right.

Here's the deal: down south, if I want to go, say, from Knoxville to Atlanta, I just hop on I-75 South and go. Note that I-75 South actually goes south, and if I stay on it, it will take me to a point that is south of where I started. I never gave this much thought. I just accepted it as a universal truth, like when the bread lands peanut-butter-side-down on the kitchen floor.

I brought that line of logic with me when I came up here. Since I at first had a fairly long commute to work, I figured that I could try some different routes occasionally to break up the monotony and to help me learn the area. So I'd often find myself out in the middle of a universe of corn fields that stretched beyond the horizon. No problem. I was enjoying the scenery, and, besides, the roads were well-marked.

Well, marked. Now, right off the bat, I want to know how many of you guys knew about this, because nobody let me in on it. Up here, if you've got a road that's marked "700 North", the truth is, that thing's running East and West! NOT North, as I would foolishly assume from the name, but East and West! (We'll not even get into the fact that the numbers change at county lines). I spent the first few weeks of my life up here 90 degrees off-course because I didn't know that little tidbit. I've been to Bement, Allenville, and Cooks Mills (all fine places, mind you), but I didn't mean to go to any of them, and I'm not even sure how I got there. I wouldn't mind visiting them again, for that matter, if I could get to them without going through Missouri to get there.

I did finally figure the system out, though, and I was eventually told that it has something to do with 911 coordinates referenced to county borders. It made sense once it was explained to me. Everything's fine now, although my wife's confidence in my navigation skills is a little shaken, and I still have to deliberately remember that Charleston is NOT north of Mattoon. If you want to hear something hilarious, you ought to hear me giving directions up here. If you think I was lost, just follow THOSE poor guys and see where they end up! I guess I'm just at a point now of needing to humble myself after 5 years and to just put this question out there:

Is there anything else I should know?