Directionally challenged

I am not, nor have I ever been, good with directions. It's almost embarrassing to admit when I learned what highways actually led me to places like Ames, Des Moines and Iowa City and which direction I was going to get there.
North, South, East, West really mean nothing to me. Canada, Mexico, D.C. and California, right? That really doesn't help when I'm trying to figure out which direction Ankeny is from Bondurant or that one roadway turns into another name automatically without warning. Did you know Highway 330 turns into Highway 65 with just a simple sign acknowledging the transition? There should be neon lights alerting a girl to this.
As far as I'm concerned MapQuest doesn't help me on this directional issue, either.
While driving direction sites like MapQuest are very beneficial for the average driver to get places, they do little for the directionally challenged morons. Really there should be landmark directions along with the standard instructions.
It shouldn't just say turn right on NE Second Street/NE 78th Street continue for 7.2 miles until NE 78th Street turns into Oralabor Road. That really doesn't work for me.
Primarily because I thought I knew where this turn would be. I thought it was a quaint, curvy little road in front of Casey's General Store -- wrong -- 74th Street. So I guessed it would be at the next major road on my right, after some factory-looking building -- wrong again -- 62nd Street. Two U-turns later I figured out the road must be before the Casey's -- way before.
The directions should have gone a little something like this:
Turn right on NE Second Street/NE 78th Street. This will be right before the bar in the white building called The Wooden Nickel. You will proceed down a two lane road, through Bondurant. You will remain on this road for quite some time. (A distance in miles means about as much to me as telling me to go north.)Don't be thrown by the stop signs and random railroad tracks in the middle of this cornfield/new construction development setting, you will eventually end up in Ankeny.
Now these are directions I can understand. If only MapQuest consulted me first.