GPS Journeys

We’ve come a long way since AAA Tripkits and Road Atlases. Sometimes I miss a good old road map, to see what’s nearby, what runs parallel and that sort of thing. I still keep a laminated map of New England in the car for backup. We’ve gone through a few GPS varieties since then.

When we first tried GPS, it took me a while to trust it. I still printed out directions and brought a road map, just to be sure. I would follow the directions and point out the exits along with our female guide with a British accent, but sometimes we would still go sailing by the ramp. It was then, of course, I realized that it wasn’t just me, my chauffeur didn’t listen to, he didn’t listen to the GPS either. Either way – we got where we were going – after several recalculating messages – which of course is the beauty of GPS.

For a while we had a Tom Tom with a voice that sounded like Hugh Jackman, which I loved. He would exclaim – “Bugger! You Missed it – Let me figure out another route”. The first time it happened I was behind the wheel and almost had to pull over I was laughing so hard. Unfortunately Tom Tom often wanted me to turn onto one way streets the wrong way, which led to its retirement.

For many years after that – we had a Magellan – which stopped updating maps. When we called, we were informed that we were the proud owners of a “legacy “product and no more updates would be forthcoming. We ignored updating and every now and then would find ourselves travelling on new bridges – that appeared off road – on the GPS screen – like we were flying over the river a la Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Our children use their phones to navigate and don’t understand why we still rely on a windshield suction cup version. Car salesmen smile at it – “oh yeah!, My Grandfather has one of those!” When everyone was raving about Waze – we gave it a try – but frankly, found all the pop ups and icons too distracting. We were hoping it would reroute us around traffic jams – but it never did – probably as the result of operator error.

I am content with my built in GPS, but my chauffer, who is slower to embrace new technology, is not, and insists on sticking up the old Magellan, which also hogs the sole dashboard outlet. He feels that the dashboard version takes his eyes off the road – I actually like the Apple Play feature, but I save it for when I am driving solo. Now of course, the highways are renaming the exit numbers – which is making the GPS even more of an antique – but no changes are on our horizon for navigation. Occasionally I pull up the GPS on my phone if things get too confusing. Between the two, we usually arrive at our destination on time:)

Thank you to the Defense Department for the NAVSTAR Technology

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