Health & Fitness
Lost (With Help from a 'Wizard')
We were feeling quite pleased with our use of the GPS unit--until our return trip.
The route was not unfamiliar. We had gone to Northampton, Mass. many times over the decades our friends had lived there. But when a daughter offered to lend us her GPS, it seemed like an opportunity to get acquainted with yet another technological marvel. The era of free road maps at gas stations has been replaced by a new era of voices (choose male or female; choose language) telling us where to turn, how long it will take to reach our destination, and where delays can be expected.
The new gadget was very helpful negotiating metropolitan traffic which, however many times we go to New England, always seems like a trial to be borne. By the time we arrived in Northampton, we were feeling quite pleased with our entrance into the world of the little wizard who sits out there on a satellite guiding us expertly mile after mile.
A few days later it is time to return to the Lehigh Valley. We are now experienced GPS aficionados, so we put our home address into the device and head for the interstate--or, at least, that is the plan. We are directed to a side street shortly after starting out. We reason that there must be a traffic tie-up on the highway and we are being directed to avoid it. That must be why we are asked to go north instead of south. From the side street we are instructed to turn onto what is obviously a dirt road (path, really) that takes us through a farm field where we encounter an old pick-up truck coming from the opposite direction. We bounce past each other, perhaps wondering who is more lost.
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The dirt path emerges on another side street and we soon find ourselves at the point where we were first told to turn into the field. How can this be? Now we are laughing hysterically and decide to disobey the little wizard on the satellite, who wants us to go through the field again. Instead, we go back to Northampton and follow our well remembered route to the interstate, heading SOUTH. In case you're reading this, little wizard, you gave us a crazy detour but a rib-tickling memory.
