Lewis and Clark and Google Maps

Happy Memorial Day. I hope your plans are a little easier to figure out than mine.

We're trying to meet some friends at Squaw Island, a possibly-offensively-named but apparently cool park in the city of Buffalo. Not having been there, I consulted Google Maps, the best online map/directions provider by far. But Google appears to be setting me up for a more interesting journey than I anticipated:


I wasn't really sure what to do with that, so I tried to readjust the view so that I could see what was going on better. First it launched me over the edge of the off-ramp. It didn't show a pile of ruined cars at the bottom, so I'm pretty sure that was a mistake on Google's part. I'm hoping it was a mistake. (I mean, I'm REALLY hoping that's a mistake.) But once I got the all-seeing eye of Google adjusted to staying on the ramp, you can see above that it wasn't any better. It appears that I'm supposed to swerve around a few lanes of traffic then launch myself straight into the air. My rocketcar is in the shop, so I'm understandably worried.

I tried to readjust again, just to get a better view of the exit sign/launch coordinates, and this is what it came up with:



After flying straight up into the air, I need to come crashing down about 5 feet later and continue on the highway. Then about 50 feet after that I need to turn my car 90 degrees vertically and take off again. (Understandably, these lines could not be seen in the previous picture because they were covered up by the first skyward rocketline.) I tried to angle the view upward to see where the lines go, particularly that last line where it just disappears. Unfortunately the lines appear infinite within the constraints of Google Maps' vertical axis. And they appear to be perfectly straight despite their contiguousness. In order to appear that way that they must either 1. have a sharp turn but go really high up; or 2. have (an)other turn(s) that aren't accounted for here. I'm imagining a Super Mario-style cloud level full of moving platforms and koopa paratroopas.

Then, one step later in the directions (with no mention of the harrowing cloudworld adventure), the line bursts up out of the ground outside a "water jet cutting showroom," proceeds straight up into the stratosphere again, then comes crashing down not a foot later. It then hops the curb into the center of an intersection:



I'm not sure if these maneuvers would be possible even in a Harrier Jet, but my Chevy Cobalt is certainly going to have some trouble. Maybe there's a spring-loaded panel under the road that pops up as I drive over it? Or a scary magnet that comes down to pick up my car? However it goes, Google is not adequately preparing me. I'll let you know if I make it.