Carmin would not stop talking.
“In one mile, exit right,” her emotionless voice proclaimed loudly over the Houston rush hour report blaring from my car radio. “Exit right, exit right.”
“Easier said than done,” I snapped back at my new, know-it-all traveling companion.
All five lanes of traffic were bumper to bumper. More than one time in Houston, I was tempted to abandon my vehicle on the interstate right then and there. It would have been faster to hike the few miles back to my hotel.
“Recalulating,” Carmin said as I rolled past the exit ramp. I was stuck in a suburban log jam unable to change lanes.
“Recalculating,” Carmin kept repeating as if annoyed with my blunder. Finally, she offered up a new plan.
“In two miles, merge right,” she said with full confidence.
Carmin was a gift. I never would have purchased a talking Global Positioning System (GPS) unit on my own - at least not at this point in my life.
I’m not totally technologically-challenged. I do own two laptop computers, a cell phone, a digital camera, an I-Pod. I even have a small GPS I pack along when trail-running and mushing. But I’m never the first person to acquire these new gadgets. I like tools that are proven to be helpful and intuitive. In other words, if I have to read the direction manual to understand the device, I’m not interested.
“This’ll help you find your talks,” my friend explained as I tore the Christmas wrapping paper off the small square box. “It’s easy to use.”
“Interesting,” I said completely leery of the gismo’s supposed simplicity.
“You just type in the address of wherever you want to go and it will tell you how to get there. Plus, it’ll even tell you where all of the Starbucks are located. You won’t have to drive all over town looking for coffee anymore.”
“Yeah,” I said, hesitant to even open the packaging.
My friend took the initiative for me, pulling the Garmin (StreetPilot c330) out of its box and charging it up. Then he positioned the unit right above my car dashboard, hanging it by an industrial-strength suction cup from my windshield.
Once I plugged the GPS into the car lighter, she took control, commanding me to turn right, merge left, stay straight, drive so many miles to my destination. At first, I found her bossy voice quite annoying; I didn’t need any help getting to the local grocery store. But I wanted to practice with the contraption before my 8000-mile road trip across Texas. So my new Garmin (that I named Carmin) guided me all over the state of Montana from ski slopes to Italian restaurants to trailheads.
Carmin and I spent the last 6 weeks together. She directed me straight to the schools and libraries where I did my Iditarod Dog Mushing presentations; I barely even needed to look at my road atlas. She helped me to find campgrounds and national parks, hotels and greasy spoons. She led me to dog parks and river trails.
But Carmin isn’t all perfect. She has a hard time keeping up with progress. Sometimes, she’s not aware of new roads, exits, or businesses; updated information can be downloaded to keep her in the know, but I haven’t gotten that far yet.
And my friend was right. Carmin did her best to help me locate coffee every morning – well, almost every morning.
One sunup when I was blurry-eyed and half asleep, I followed Carmin’s complex directions leading me to the nearest Starbucks. I turned right, drove straight for miles, turned left, drove straight for a few more miles, u-turned, merged, exited, and ended up in an abandoned lot overgrown with weeds, littered with trash, and home to most of the feral felines in Dallas.
Even a GPS can have a bad day.
( 0 Votes )
