Only depend on myself

So I keep getting ridiculously bad directions. I usually rely on maps and people to get me where I'm going and it has worked very until the last few days. Yesterday when I was lost I rolled up to a gas station to ask how far I had to go until I hit Hwy. 1 and the dude told me I had to go back up Hwy. 246 about thirty miles North or else it would take me 100 miles going South. WHAT? I pulled out my map to show him how close it was and he told me it must be an old map. "I not bullshiting you man. I live here forty year". Do the roads stretch with age in California? 15 miles later I was on the 1 going South. Then at the campsite I was talking to a pretty cool guy about the ride and how far it was to Santa Barbera. He responded with a fairly accurate amount of 30 miles but then added in that it was all down hill. We were standing on the Beach. Sea Level. I pointed this out to him and he mentioned with a motion of his hand that I had to climb this first hill (that was maybe 100 ft., I probably could have thrown a rock to the top) then it was downhill. Um yeah, I'll just pedal up, put the bike on auto-pilot, and just coast the thirty miles into Santa Barbera while taking a nap. Just let gravity do all the work. Maybe he thought that everything just rolls South like it looks on a map. Well it doesn't. I thought the same thing up until a month and a half ago or else I might not have done this thing. Actually everything rolls North. At least it's felt that way at times.