The motel, outside of Providence, R.I., was a fine place to stay except for one tiny problem: We couldn't get out of the parking lot.

We needed to make a left turn to get to our supper, but the traffic was too thick. Even turning right -- so we could go down the road and turn around -- was a lesson in frustration.

This was a surprise. My parents had frequented the motel dining room for years. A cousin held her wedding reception in the banquet facilities. After my father died, my sister and I ate breakfast with Mom there several times a week.

Never had we had trouble getting out of the parking lot.

But 23 years have passed since my husband, Paul, and I moved from southern New England to Maine. This neighborhood, once so familiar to me, had changed as much as I had.

I've evolved for the better. This place had not. It had become a spot on the map of what social critic James Howard Kunstler calls "The Geography of Nowhere."

In his book of that title, he writes, "The unwillingness to think about the public realm of the street in any other terms beside traffic, shows how little value Americans confer on the public realm in general."

We were in the midst of soulless suburbia, where the car was king and people an afterthought. The desk clerk had told us a Panera Bread was very close by. Probably within walking distance -- in theory, anyway. But only a fool would walk here. And driving was looking increasingly like a gamble as well.

All we wanted was a cup of soup and a hunk of baguette, which we would buy with the gift card in my pocket. I felt my stomach grumble as we finally turned right onto Route 114. We passed the exit to Interstate 195 and I realized cars were flying back and forth from there to the commercial Route 6, about an eighth of a mile away. That was the site of my Holy Grail. But surely the restaurant didn't account for all the traffic.

We reversed direction and reached the intersection with Route 6. As we idled at a traffic light, my eyes widened. Small family businesses and one lone modern shopping plaza had once lined this section of the highway. Now it was filled with strip malls and big box conglomerations. It had been a commercial area for decades, but a human-scale one. Now it was the kind of place I love to hate -- and the source of all the traffic.

Still, Panera Bread beckoned. Where was it? As I suggested that Paul go east, I felt my stomach clench, from a combination of hunger and stress. It's impossible to find what you're looking for in Strip Mall City unless you know exactly which ugly little collection of shops your destination is hidden in. Once I went looking for a futon shop on Auburn's Center Street, armed only with a street number. Silly me -- what I really needed to know was that it was located in the "Auburn Plaza," one of a dozen look-alike mini-malls.

At least there were two of us on this jaunt, one to drive and one to crane her neck vulture-like to spot the Panera Bread.

After we had gone about two miles without luck, I was inspired to call the Panera Bread and ask for directions.

"We're in the plaza where Dick's is," the perky gal who answered the phone said.

"Is that east or west of the intersection of 114?"

"What?"

Of course nobody knew where they were. They were Nowhere. We turned around and headed west. Just a few yards from the intersection of Route 114, the Dick's sign glared. The sporting goods store loomed at the back of the massive parking lot, but the Panera Bread sat snugly at the front, a warm, well-lighted place on this wintry evening.

Soup. Coffee. Chocolate chip cookie.

A maze of curbing surrounded the restaurant. Paul entered it, drove around, and headed right back out to Route 6.

I sobbed.

We motored to a traffic light, turned into a big box village, reversed direction, waited at the light to get back to Route 6 and stopped at the traffic light in front of Panera Bread. Finally, we were in the restaurant. I took a spoonful of soup and looked outside. A sign read "King's Philip's Crossing." I sighed. What would Metacomet, the legendary Wampanoag sachem who once ruled here, think about this mess?

He'd be sobbing, too.

Liz Soares is a freelance writer and the author of "All for Maine: The Story of Gov. Percival P. Baxter." She welcomes e-mail at lsoares@gwi.net.