HOW GREAT IS GPS!

I am on a trip in Tennessee - home country. Used to, I knew all the roads and how to get around. I still think that, but it is not like it used to be. Perhaps my thinking is not as sharp as it used to be. It is harder to find my way around.

I have always prided myself in being a good navigator. I know how to read maps. I am a good compass navigator - Boy Scouts honor, you know. But.... I do have a GPS on my Sprint cell phone, and I have found it pretty good in several places for finding direction. Maybe it is becoming a crutch that I must have. Maybe it should be more than a crutch.

Twice in two days I have let the Sprint GPS woman get me out of a bind. Well, it is not like I could not have gotten out of it, but I decided to put my confidence in the GPS woman - and it worked. My being where I am proves that.

The first time, coming into Nashville, I decided to let GPS get me to the Broadway Embassy. But I lost confidence right away because the GPS woman was not saying what I thought she should be saying. I shut her down to operated on my own instincts. Well, I got off down in a residential neighborhood. Frankly, I did not know where I was!

I plugged in the GPS while in the residential neighborhood, and I decided to let GPS do the directing. In no time, I was in front of Embassy on Broadway!

Then, last night I had gone over to meet friends about 20 miles from Nashville. We went to eat at an O Charlies, which was really right next to the Interstate I came in on. Well, on departing, I obviously took a wrong turn. I got on back roads and drove and drove but never found the Interstate. I could have by following the truck compass, but there was no road going that way. I did not have a map, either.

So, I am traveling down this highway and decided I was not getting anywhere. I turned on the Sprint Navigator, plugged in the hotel address (using a recent one, already there), and immediately, the GPS woman said, "Do a U-turn, and travel nine point six miles." I followed instructions. She put me back on the Interstate in nothing flat. And, she had me back at the hotel in a much shorter distance than I would have done, using my former knowledge.

Isn't technology Great! Just learning to trust is the hard thing. But I am becoming convinced that GPS has arrived for my travels, anyway. I am a believer!

GPS is not new. It is, though for the everyday person. I remember 50 years ago questioning a pilot on why he was taking so long to make his takeoff run. Turned out he was programming coordinates to get to where he was going. Asking him more, he said that the GPS would get him within 20 feet of his destination, a far away place, as I remember. So, GPS has come to me, and I know I am a late comer! But I am a user, never to deride that latest technology available to the automobile traveler.

Life is Good!