Better Days: Give me a Map!

  • By Teri Stein
  • November 22, 2011
  • 310
                        
Summary: Call me old fashioned, but give me a map any day. A recent trip to Pittsburgh went horribly wrong and left me certain that I would rather do my own recalculating. For years we relied on maps to get us around when traveling. I may not be good at some things but I must admit – I can read a map. I only ever got us lost once or twice in over thirty years of pre-GPS travel. Therefore, I’m not convinced that GPS navigation is all that handy and a recent trip to Pittsburgh proved it. We enjoyed the spectacular entrance into Pittsburgh when you come through the Fort Pitt tunnel and there is Pittsburgh in all its glory – like seeing the Emerald City suddenly appear. We were having a good day. I was smiling; we were going to make a stop at one of my favorite stores, The Whole Foods Market. We had been to the one in Columbus. Columbus is an easy city to drive around in. We hadn’t been to the Pittsburgh store and I was really looking forward to it and, besides, I was out of my favorite unsweetened soy yogurt only available in larger cities. Anyway, as we made our way into the heart of the city there was a lot of traffic (and everyone seemed to know where they were going), the GPS was talking us along the correct route when all of the sudden it happened – GPS’s biggest nemesis – the detour. My smile faded. My husband, Joe, who was driving, was ready to abort the trip right then and there. “Turn right, then immediately turn left,” squawked the GPS. Deep breathe, then relief – it seemed the detour was only for large trucks. We turned right and were shocked to see three immediate lefts side by side by side. Hope faded. We opted for the closest left and suddenly found ourselves on a freeway going out of town. “Recalculating, recalculating.” The GPS was still optimistic that it would get us to our location. “Turn right, take the ramp, turn left.” (Yes, at this point, I was wishing I had a map. Maps are so great. You look at them before you leave, leisurely plan your route, you can see all the landmarks you’ll pass along the way. You would have an idea, at least, of where the heck the Whole Foods Market in Pittsburgh is located.) We blindly followed the GPS’s instructions, we had no choice, we didn’t have a map. I was feeling the pain and hopelessness of that couple that was in the news earlier this year, when blindly following their GPS they found themselves stranded on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere in a snow storm! The husband took off after a few days to find help and that was not a happy ending, fortunately, the wife survived. We passed over a bridge and saw we were fast approaching a tunnel we never knew existed. The GPS was practically telling us to do a U turn in the tunnel but we were smarter than that! I heard the high pitched “ping” of Joe’s last nerve snapping. “We’re going home,” he said as hit the “home” button on the GPS. “Recalculating, turn right.” We turned right and there it was! When life is moving faster than I am, I sometimes have these “out of control” dreams. In these dreams, I’m driving somewhere (probably to Pittsburgh) in a car with no brakes and I’m going up a big steep hill that looks like it drops off into oblivion at the top. Yet, I know when I get to the top, I’ll have no choice but to go down the other side of this big steep hill and I have NO BRAKES! Yes, before us was the big steep hill of my nightmares! And people lived there. There were houses on each side. A quarter inch of snow would keep these people stranded in their homes, the road was that steep. We made our way slowly upward, staring ahead at the spot where the road ended and the sky began. Surprise! When we got to the top there was actually about a fifteen foot wide flat spot on the top of the hill. We started down and, thankfully, our brakes worked! What a relief. I’d love to take another trip back to Pittsburgh with a map to see if we could get to the Whole Foods Market but now we are recalculating that our next trip will be to the one in Columbus!


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