Driving Directions...Don't Leave Home Without Them

My father has always had a good sense of direction. Give him a map and a destination, and he'll plan a trip Triple A (or, as my mother calls it, AA) could only dream about.

We learned at an early age that if we were careless enough to mention an upcoming trip, he'd run out to the car and produce folding maps for pretty much every state east of the Appalachians.

"Now, here is where we are," he'd say, stabbing at a point with one hand, while simultaneously unfolding three more maps with the other. "You'll want to take 81 south until you come to 83 South, then cut over....Wait a minute," he'd interrupt himself," there is construction at exit 51, so you'll want to get off at exit 49, follow route 13 for 4.5 miles, then get back on 81 here..."

Very soon, the dining room table would resemble Churchill's war room bunker except that my father's plans were slightly more intricate and better mapped out. You knew you were in real trouble when he grabbed the highlighter and headed for the copy machine though. We were always half afraid we'd have to eat the resulting map after memorizing it so it wouldn't fall into enemy hands.

Which is why it surprised us when he got a nav. system last year. Somehow, I thought he would see it as a demotion from 4-star general to foot soldier. Not so. He delights in plugging in random destinations, then playing with the options to see how many different possible routes he can get it to generate. Slow night on TV? Grab the Tom-Tom and head off for a virtual trip to see Aunt Jean in Cape Cod, or maybe nip down to watch the Kentucky Derby.

But it is not just new and exotic destinations he enters. He chortles gleefully as he challenges it to find places he is already familiar with. His eyes take on a special glow as he waits to see if it will direct him to what he already knows is the best route, or if it will offer up a poorer, safer choice clearly meant for someone with less skill and knowledge of each and every alley and secondary road in the greater tri-state area.

He does use it for practical things as well though. For example, he recently used it to plan out the route to Florida two months before they left, scouting out possible overnight stops, comparing the distance of hotels from the exit, their proximity to restaurants and determining, to within a tenth of a mile, exactly how far it would be door to door, stops included.

And, since they've arrived, he uses it in conjunction with the phone book he began carrying around to learn the area. Winn-Dixie? A left, a right and a right. Town Center? Do you want the scenic route or the business route? Same distance, but watch the speed limit on the scenic route. It takes 3.4 minutes longer, or you risk a speeding ticket from the police who constantly patrol that stretch of road.

Coming from the airport when we visited, Tim and I got very specific directions, right down to which lane to be in for the final turn onto their street (the right hand lane of the two left turning lanes after you cross the railroad tracks, because you have to make an immediate right into the development).

For the entire week of our visit, with every new restaurant or activity came the opportunity to play "beat the Tom-Tom". If it wanted to take us on surface streets, my father would hop onto 95 and then pick up the directions from the nearest exit because it was faster. If it wanted to send us on the interstate, he would zoom down the back roads to avoid the traffic tie-ups he was sure we would find at a certain time of day.

All of this was well and fine until the last day when we headed back down to the airport to meet my brother at a nearby restaurant. Since he was just arriving, and we were leaving (we did the family thing in shifts this year), it was decided that Tim and I would drive my parents down in our rental car, and Mike would take them back in his to spend the next week with them.

There was some separation anxiety with the Tom-Tom, but we convinced my father that it was a fairly direct route...95 South (for both of us) to exit 26, then a left at the first light and follow the signs for the restaurant. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, for one thing, my brother apparently missed the exit for 95 when leaving the airport. And, since he was on the phone with my father at the time, we got a blow-by-blow account, until, that is, my father began walking away from us back toward the main road. I'm not sure what he was hoping to accomplish by it, but I suspect he may have been going to send up a flare, or maybe flag down a passing motorist with a nav system and commandeer their vehicle.

He had spent the last month learning a new area, but this was outside of his realm. His worst fears had come to pass. We might never see my brother again. What if he ended up shooting past us and landed in Miami? Or, worse yet, a whole other state, like (gasp) Georgia?!?

"Where are you?" he yelled frantically into the phone for the tenth time.
"Exit 10," my brother replied, equally calm.
"There is no exit 10 on 95. You're on the wrong road," the frustration was building.
"How do I get on 95 from here?" (Gee, maybe use mapquest before you left home?)
"I don't know. I don't have my Tom-Tom!" Oh yeah, much calmer now.
"Then you're not helping me!!" No kidding.

Finally, by some miracle, my brother eventually made it to the restaurant (The rest of us were very concerned. We spent the time watching an iguana eye up some ducks and then went and had a drink at the bar. Hey, there was no reason for everyone to be upset.)

One thing is certain though. By the time we return for our next visit, my father will intimately know the area around the airport, and he'll never leave home without his Tom-Tom again.