We just got back from Thanksgiving in Montreal, a 13-hour, one-way trip from Kingsley.
We didn't use a map.
The GPS is one of the world's best inventions, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm married to a guy who willingly admits he has no sense of direction. It can be an exercise in frustration to try to explain to him how to get to Mt. Holiday or Fischer's Happy Hour or somewhere he doesn't routinely go. "Turn right at the end of 204," I'll say, with the intersection clearly in my mind's eye. "The road ends. You have to go either left or right on 22. Turn right."
He'll pause, making me think it's sinking in, then say, "This is in Suttons Bay?"
Sigh.
Thankfully, he's a gadget freak, so when the first affordable GPS devices came out eight or 10 years ago, he bought one. It was pretty rudimentary, but we learned to geocache and we'd take it out on the porch to see what our latitude was compared to friends in Europe or we'd use it like a compass.
A few years later, he had a chance to barter for a talking GPS that works in the car. It has a suction cup that attaches it to the windshield and he opted for the voice of an English lass he dubbed "Lola."
He's barely gotten lost since.
Lola has gotten us out of numerous construction jams and to hotels in the concrete canyons of Chicago. We've used her to help us find friends' houses and big-city museums and the nearest place to sleep on a deserted stretch of U.P. road.
If you have a firm destination in mind, all you have to do is plug in the address and Lola gives you step-by-step directions until you're there. She also offers up restaurant tips, lodging hints and roadside attraction tidbits.
My problem comes in when I disagree with her.
"It looks like she's telling us to take 696," I'll say haughtily on one of our sporadic trips to Detroit. "That's just ridiculous! Any first-grader knows the Lodge makes more sense."
Then I'll take the Lodge and Lola will patiently say, "Recalulating ..."
Or, "I have never turned here in my life to get to Empire," I'll shriek. "Some British tart isn't going to tell me to start now."
"Recalculating ..."
Her patience with our senses of direction -- whether overly inflated or nonexistent -- is probably a 21st century metaphor for taking what life dishes out. When you come to an unexpected turn in the road, do what Lola would do.
Recalculate.
Jodee Taylor can be reached at jtaylor@record-eagle.com.
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