Always Have a Backup
Last night I went to dinner at the home of one of the football moms I volunteer with. Four women were invited over for a completely fabulous home made dinner. Impressive to me wasn’t that she was cooking dinner, but that she could invite 4 women over for an entire evening and not have a spouse or 3 kids in her hair. Who is able to do that? It’s a magical thing if you can experience it ever.
She lives was across town and I’m not the least bit familiar with the streets there. I live in the mountains and our streets are notorious for three things:
- Most of them are about 1 1/2 car widths wide. Perpetual game of ‘auto chicken’.
- There are no side walks.
- There are no street lights.
Not a problem! I have my handy Iphone MotionX GPS App. That and a full tank of gas. I am golden.
Dinner is at 7:30 7:00 PM. I left my home at 7:10.
GPS on and I am on my way. The first clue that this was not going to play out well should have been when I entered house number 48 and it spit back that there is no number 48 on that street. However, it did have a number 49, and as I am the ever-eternal optimist, that was close enough.
Onward , I venture. GPS insures me that my ETA is 7:34.
Issues: (See the figure to the right.)
C. I was not flying.
B. I was so lost, the GPS didn’t even know where it was.
A. That turn it wanted me to make onto Northerly Drive? It does not exist. It is a dead end. Not a Cul-de-Sac where you can very nicely turn around. It’s a flat out dead end. The street just……ends. A 1 1/2 car width wide dead end. With no lights, no side walk. And 2 very filled, but now knocked over garbage cans.
Actual time of arrival: 8:10 with step by step instructions via phone from the resident of house number 48.
@submom on twitter.
said:
My apology first and sympathy for having to go thru that GPS induced panic (and rage? You didn’t mention about cursing and stuff. Perhaps you are more Zen about everything…) Now that we’ve got this out of the way… LMAO! The diagrams are esp. Hilarious. (I said sorry already!) How could the GPS be so totally wrong? And once it has caused sucj havoc, how could you trust it ever again?!
[Reply]
Nancy
@ifevolution on twitter.
Replied on : January 29th, 2010 at 10:26 AM
Thankfully I didn’t have to pay for that GPS application.
[Reply]
@submom on twitter.
said:
Btw, happy for you that you got a nice evening with galfriends, once you got there of course…
[Reply]
GPS isn’t always your friend-we found this out coming back from vacation last year! Glad you got there and enjoyed a nice meal.
.-= susan´s last blog ..Let’s look back =-.
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@BrilliantSulk on twitter.
said:
That is hilarious because I can totally relate! I was once taken over an entire mountain range and ended up the same exact spot 70 miles later…
Hope your evening wasn’t ruined.
.-= Amanda@Brilliant Sulk´s last blog ..Weirdo Wednesday =-.
[Reply]
Nancy
@ifevolution on twitter.
Replied on : January 29th, 2010 at 2:48 PM
Good thing you had the gas for that!
[Reply]
I’m glad to see that my GPS isn’t the only one that is completely nuts. Ours showed very poor judgement when we were on vacation this summer.
I thought I might have burned it out with my home health misadventures. It was always saying “Turn around when possible” in what seemed like an urgent manner.
.-= Tracie´s last blog ..No Stir Fry Today Children =-.
[Reply]
My GPS forgets streets that exist, and sends me into bodies of water with alarming regularity.
[Reply]
@Kristin_OPC on twitter.
said:
Nancy, that’s awful… Stupid GPS! My baby bro once had a Tom Tom GPS system. He called it the Lost Lost.
.-= That One Mom´s last blog ..The Latest Tuesday Craze! Just Say Thank You! =-.
[Reply]
no! Since i got my 3G iphone, I’ve gotten better- not perfect, but a bit! Was the dinner good at least!?
.-= sara@ domestically challenged´s last blog ..No, I never learned =-.
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@AmyatGITR on twitter.
said:
Oh my that is terrible. I hate geting lost. But I am glad you got a night out. Hope it turned out fun after all of that.
.-= amy´s last blog ..These Family Vacations Are For The Dogs, Literally =-.
[Reply]
I love it. “I’m not flying.” Seriously, were you supposed to go all terrain?
.-= arizona mamma´s last blog ..This One Goes Out to the One I Love =-.
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I do love my GPS, it doesn’t always take me off in the exact direction I think I ought to go, but I just love hearing that little voice telling me to turn right in .5 mile. No more searching for obscure street names.
Love it!
Kristin
.-= kristin ´s last blog ..Borrowing words . . . =-.
[Reply]
Your friend must live in the same kind of location we do. The directions tell people to go down a road that led to a bridge 20 years ago and now leads to a dead end and pizza delivery refuses to deliver to us because they say we don’t exist.
.-= motpg´s last blog ..The Letter =-.
[Reply]
@Pickletalks on twitter.
said:
My dad had a heart attack last year and was sent to a hospital in downtown Washington, D.C. My mom got lost coming back the first night. A friend drove her up there because a helicopter transported him. Mom didn’t tell me about this until the next day because she thought I’d left for my vacation that day. So I sent my family on vacation without me and told my mom I’d drive her back and forth to the hospital because I had a GPS.
My dad was in the hospital 21 days. After a couple days my mom and I decided that our goal was to be able to get to the hospital and back home using the same route at least ONCE during his stay…and without getting lost.
The very last day my dad was in the hospital, I actually got there and back on the same route without getting lost. My mom never made that goal. And she got several speeding tickets from speed cameras to boot.
.-= corrie´s last blog ..Thursday’s Tackle – Online Vacation to Las Vegas =-.
[Reply]
Nancy
@ifevolution on twitter.
Replied on : January 29th, 2010 at 2:46 PM
Hope your dad is doing great now!!!
[Reply]
HAHA! that would be me! i figure if i can’t even figure out the GPS, it has no way of telling me how to NOT get lost!
.-= noelle´s last blog ..today is friday and here are my fragments from the week =-.
[Reply]
This is one of those rare days I’m actually thankful I don’t have GPS. I have to do it the old-fashioned way — Mapquest.
.-= Zen Mom´s last blog ..If Its Wednesday…. =-.
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heavenly,
admire you for the quality time with friends,
.-= jingle´s last blog ..You Can Make A Difference =-.
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My friend was on her way to visit me one day (I live in a rural area) and her GPS tried to KILL HER. It took her down this random gravel road that neither I or my husband had ever heard of. The road was dangerously close to the edge of a steep, death-provoking cliff on one side and lined with dilapidated houses on the other side, whose inhabitants were probably aiming shotguns at her head as she drove past in her shiny silver Honda.
She made it to my house alive, but shaken up.
I never could figure out where this gravel road was or how on earth her GPS managed to even find it.
I don’t trust technology one bit!
-Jen
.-= NathanRising´s last blog ..More Snow Fun =-.
[Reply]
@pixielation on twitter.
said:
I leant my GPS to my father-in-law AND gave him the A-Z with the route pencilled in. He still got lost. Swore at the GPS, and ended up asking a random guy in a fish&chips shop how to get there!
.-= pixielation´s last blog ..Going for birthdays, bolting and bling =-.
[Reply]
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