109 What?

That’s Google Maps satellite view of the Boggy Thicket.  That bright white spot just to the right of center is the 5th wheel parked next to the garage.  You can see parts of the house and the pool if you know what you’re looking for, but they are almost hidden by the trees.

As I’ve mentioned before, we are located in the northeast corner of Harris County at the intersection of Conners Road and Bearden Lane.

When we first moved here, thirty-something years ago, I went to the post office to get an address.  They told me that the post office did not assign addresses, that I should pick a number I liked and they would deliver my mail to whatever address I chose.  I asked how I was supposed to do that, the lady at the counter didn’t know, but she suggested contacting the light company to see if they had a suggestion.  They did not.

I finally settled on the 109 – the tract number on our survey.  I later learned that most of my neighbors chose their street addresses the same way.

109 Conners Road has served us pretty well  as an address.  It does put an odd numbered address on what would normally be the even numbered side of the street.  Over the years, that has occasionally caused FedEx and UPS to deliver our packages to neighbors across the street.  Otherwise, it has worked just fine.

Recently, Google Maps has decided that we moved.  Type in a search for 109 Conners, Huffman, TX and the site automatically switches your entry to 109 Bearden.

My first thought was that when we built our garage and moved our driveway to the Bearden Lane side of our property, they assumed that was now our primary address. But - a close look at the area on Google Maps shows that they have Conners Road labeled as both Conners and Bearden – and Bearden Lane labeled as both Bearden and Conners.  The roads used to be labeled correctly, but they're not anymore.

The other on-line map programs aren’t much better.  Type in our address on MapQuest, and they can’t find us at all; Yahoo Maps put us on the wrong side of the road and Bing finds us but puts their little locator arrow down at our next-door neighbor’s.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, nothing has changed.  We are still right where we’ve been for almost forty years.