I have a few days of driving back and forth to a neighboring state this week. Lots of time in the car, spent traveling to a place I don’t know well.
I don’t particularly like driving. I don’t like being lost at all. Just imagine how much I love driving around and around, with no idea where I am.
I had printed directions. I had GPS directions from my cell phone. Those worked great, right up until the point where the coverage vanished, and the phone decided I really wanted to go to a very small residential drive in roughly the middle of nowhere. Keep in mind that I pass much of my time in the middle of nowhere. It’s a place I’m pretty okay with, except when I’m supposed to be somewhere entirely different.
The written directions? Those would have worked great had the phone directions not brought me to exactly nowhere near the roads I needed to take.
Give me a map and compass and I’m happy as can be. Give me a car and multiple sets of non-functional directions and…well, less happy is the description I’ll choose for now.
Eventually I managed to backtrack to a road I knew. Even better, I managed to find an entire donut stand of people who truly wanted to help me find my way. They were spectacular. The kindness of strangers can be a wonderful thing.
So, me and technology? A little at odds at the moment. We’ll try to patch it up before “Phoenix” arrives in all its ebook glory on Friday. (I read the galley this weekend. The design people at Musa made it look beautiful.)
To the women at the house o’ gas and donuts on Rt. 101 today: You’re all fabulous. If you’re ever lost around here, I’ll be the first one out with directions for you.