Mapless is clueless in Columbia Lost: Curving streets, hidden buildings, discreet to the point of invisible signs -- all combine to drive the Columbia visitor to distraction, and possibly to Jessup.

June Moon was just trying to find the Kings Contrivance restaurant.

But then she entered the Columbia zone: a world of curved streets, hidden buildings and too few landmarks -- where at least 100 motorists a day end up lost.

They're victims of the good intentions of the Howard County planned town's designers, who 30 years ago considered straight roads passe, valued trees over big signs and created what one scientist calls "a nightmare spatial problem."

But on this November night, June Moon cared little about science. She and her husband, Vic, were tired of driving in circles. Everything looked the same -- tree, tree, house, tree, tree, tree, cul-de-sac, tree, tree, house, tree, tree, cul-de-sac.

The Burtonsville couple finally spotted a gas station, and Mrs. Moon got directions from clerk Jessica Dijak, who says she provides such help more than 50 times per eight-hour shift.

"Go right at the light," Jessica said. "Left at the next light."

Mrs. Moon, in her 60s, nodded, rubbing her chin.

"Get on 32 west," Jessica continued. "Take the first exit take a left the restaurant is on your right."

Mrs. Moon quit nodding. Jessica repeated the directions.

Mrs. Moon walked back to the car as confused as when she arrived.

"I think Columbia is one of the most baffling places in the whole bloody world," said the London native, riding off into the night.

To drive in Columbia -- especially the first time -- is to get lost, according to visitors, residents, gas station clerks, firefighters, taxi drivers and scientists who make a specialty of studying such things.

Arnold Purisch, a California neuro-psychologist, likens Columbia to a rat maze.

"It's trial and error," said Dr. Purisch, who knows the new town from his days at the University of Maryland. "Obviously the smart ones remember the way to the food more quickly."

Columbia was built in the 1960s, when eco-conscious planners hid buildings behind trees and mounds of grass. They curved roads around ravines they did not want to fill and hills they did not want to flatten.

"We wanted to preserve as much of what God created as we could," said Cy Paumier, one of the community's original planners, adding that getting lost "was probably the last thing in the world anybody worried about."

So today's motorists drive right by gas stations, post offices, malls and office parks -- needed navigational landmarks.

Just ask Lee Barnett, an Atlanta pension fund manager who recently flew to Washington, rented a car and drove to Columbia to make a sales pitch to JP Food Service Inc.

He drove around for 20 minutes before finding a pay phone in the middle of the new town. A JP receptionist tried to help. "Have you got to Columbia yet?" she asked.

"I don't know," Mr. Barnett replied. "What does it look like?"

He eventually found the JP office. His main memory of Columbia: "All this stuff is kind of subterranean."

Simply finding someone to give directions can seem impossible.

Many of the gas stations and convenience stores are confined to Columbia's "village centers," typically several curves away from main roads. Pedestrians are of little help, because the community's paths are behind houses.

Naturally, June and Vic Moon -- the lost motorists in search of the restaurant -- found no help as they drove up and down Shaker Drive for 20 minutes.

"There was this belt of trees and some kind of hedge along the road," Mrs. Moon said. "Who wants to get out and go crawling around in the dark?"

But the Moons did not quite reach the Columbia breaking point. That's when you park the car in front of a stranger's house.

"We have people forever knocking on our door, asking for directions. Probably three to four people a week ask," said Lil Flugrath, 57, who for 23 years has lived at the corner of Sohap Lane and Oakland Mills Road -- the latter a nightmarish, 2 1/2 -mile stretch of winding road.

Columbia cab driver Ray Lemerise often can't sit at red lights without someone asking him for directions. Some motorists even have paid him to escort them to their destination.

"I think anybody who does not have a map in Columbia is crazy," hTC said Mr. Paumier, the planner. He thinks the community ought to erect large outdoor maps at its borders.

Needless to say, the Moons did not have a map.

They repeatedly drove by a small wooden sign for the Kings Contrivance restaurant. Overly conspicuous signs are forbidden in Columbia.

Likewise, motorists can't find the Silver Shadows nightclub, tucked away in an office park across from the Columbia Mall.

Club owner Marcia Weider has quit mentioning the mall when giving directions by phone. It's too hidden by large grassy mounds.

"This was all part of the design to make utopia," Silver Shadows patron Roxie Tishkevich said. "They forgot that real people move around in this city."

Her friend Liz Mumpower noted that Columbia's unusual street names -- taken from literature -- don't help much: "You see a sign that says April Day Garth. What the hell is that?"

And so it was that all these factors -- weird street names, grassy mounds, curvy roads, the scarcity of landmarks and the lack of a good map -- worked against the Moons as they sought to check out the Kings Contrivance restaurant as a possible site for their son's wedding rehearsal dinner in April.

In all, they spent 35 minutes driving around Columbia.

At one point, they came within 100 feet of the restaurant -- albeit atop a hill on the other side of a bank of trees.

"No," Mrs. Moon said, "we never bloody well did find it."