How Did We Ever Go Anywhere?

I know people used to travel without the aid of the Internet and GPS on their cell phones, but it’s hard to imagine how taxing the experience must have been. I remember making some of those trips with my family. After driving for several hours, we would take another hour or so driving around checking out motels to find one that wasn’t too expensive or full. 

Saturday night, my wife, Marcia, decided to fly to California on Monday morning and help a friend drive her truck and trailer piled high with “stuff” back home to Kentucky. Instead of blindly taking off to St. Louis to get her on a plane, I got on the Internet before we went out to eat some dinner.

In less than thirty seconds, I had a map of the route they would be driving from Fesno CA to Paducah KY. It became apparent that the best place to connect would be in Bakersfield CA. It didn’t take long on orbitz.com to get an inexpensive ticket from St. Louis to Bakersfield, arriving in time to meet her friend as she passed through Bakersfield. Since her flight left at 6:45 am to get her there before noon on Monday, though, we needed a room in St. Louis. 

A quick search on hotels.com revealed that Hazlewood MO was close to the airport and had inexpensive motel rates fitting the four-hour stay. Googleing “restaurants hazlewood mo” showed that it would also be a good place to get a decent meal Sunday evening. So, Hazelwood it was. Back to hotels.com, and a few minutes of reading guest comments, it was clear that the La Quinta was the best bargain at $45/night including a complimentary breakfast and clean rooms that had so pleasantly surprised the guest reviewers. A couple of clicks booked the room and paid in advance. We were ready to make the trip the next afternoon. 

It only took a couple more minutes to take the final step and punch the address of the La Quinta into my cell phone’s GPS. Instead of getting a map and planning the trip, we spent our time enjoying a nice meal at El Chico Mexican Restaurant.

We hit the road Sunday afternoon. A computerized voice told us every turn to make, we and arrived at our motel with no hitches. We weren’t stressed out. We hadn’t lost any time. We hadn’t made a single wrong turn. We were ready for a good meal. 

So, relying on the GPS, once again, we searched for “eating places” closeby. We reviewed the list and clicked on interesting choices. The phone automatically dialed them up so we could ask some questions about the food. The GPS searches any type of food one has a hankering for, and we picked Italian for our seach, eliminating the one whose phone had been disconnected. 

After selecting the restaurant, I clicked another button and it automatically programmed the location into the GPS. We were ready to roll. Listening to the voice, we just did what we were told and it took us directly to Cannoli’s Restaurant. There, we enjoyed a nice meal, got back into the car and selected the motel address again, and followed the voice back to our room. 

Before heading to bed for our four-hour nap, I searched for “travel” on the GPS and found that Lambert Field. The GPS even asked if we were arriving or departing! The next morning, we were awakend by the cell phone at four a.m., had a Belgian waffle downstairs in the motel, and followed the voice right to the U.S. Airways departure gate. 

I have repressed memories of trying to follow a map and wondering if I took the right ramp to go east or west, and fearing getting lost with little time to make the flight. None of that on this trip! It took us all of six minutes to follow the computer voice right from our breakfast at the motel to the departure gate. I’ve never been so relaxed getting to an airport.

I was a third of the way back home, and half way to the Cracker Barrel in Mt. Vernon IL for a real breakfast, when Marsh sent me a text message from her cell phone saying she was sitting on the plane ready to take off. What a difference a bit of technology makes.

I thought I was finished with the technology fest, but Monday afternoon, when I called Marsh on her cell to ask if she got there o.k., I encountered two hungry females who were facing a discouraging endless desert barrenness. I asked what town they had seen recently and pulled up a mapquest.com trip plan. I was able to interpolate their position and reassured them that Baron CA was coming up soon, and a quick Google search assured me that they would find plenty of restaurants there. They thought they might make it another twenty minutes.  My work is done, I think.