road trip

Road Trip

The part of my family living in India decided to visit the half that lives in the USA over the summer vacation. Everyone wanted to do different things there, play golf, go shopping, I even signed up for a half marathon. We were all drowned out by my grandsons persistent non wavering one line,” Universal Studios, Sea World.”

A road trip was arranged and we hired a large vehicle.

“How do you know where  and how to go?” asked my daughter, “do we have to carry maps?”

In India life is simple. When you don’t know the way, you just stick your head out of the window and ask the friendly neighbourhood tea shop owner for directions. It doesn’t help that he often confuses left and right. He sometimes even comes out of his shop and waving his right arm around says, “ go left.” Nor does it help when he says “straight at the traffic signal”. When you do reach the traffic signal there are  two “straights” one is over a flyover and the other to the side of it!

“We don’t carry maps,” said my son, we use a GPS.”

It was a the size of a mobile phone. In addition to the all our luggage,   the omnipresent Garmin GPS had to be fixed to the windshield and locked. At almost every bump in the road it fell off and dangled by a cord. It had a disembodied feminine voice which started instructing us almost before we backed out of the driveway.

“Recalculating “ she said, “turn north at Westside and move forward 400 yards”.

“What is she saying?” I asked “we have not left the driveway.”

“That is what she is asking us to do” said my son as he tried to fix another square box on the windshield.

“What is that thing?” I asked.

“It is an I pass. It automatically subtracts toll as we go.”
One more gadget that also regularly fell off the windshield.

Both fell off several times while we backed out of the drive way itself. The van also had a GPS on the dashboard.

“I am more familiar with my own,” said my son. We tried to switch the dashboard one off, but it steadfastly stayed on. ”Go straight 100 yards then turn left and left again,” said the monosyllabic female voice from the GPS.

“What is she saying?” I asked.

“Nothing really, she is just getting us out of the driveway on the main road.”

This really seemed like overkill.

The lady got us into all kinds of situations. She was at cross-purposes with the lady in the dashboard, even though they were programmed to take us to the same place. They “recalculated,” one after another, they had no clue  what to do when roads were blocked for maintenance. Since their voices were the same, it led to bedlam. We finally downloaded and printed out a map from Google. This kept the ladies in some sort of control.

I tried to balance both the GPS and the I pass with my arms while strapped into (as per the law) the seat. Every other notice on the high way  seemed to announce exorbitant fines for failure to do so.

“You need to hold the pass there only when I reach the toll.”

That was a relief. I put it in the glove compartment.

The woman in the Garmin seemed determined to instruct us from the time we inserted the car key. It was  confusing. Sometimes I think you need to have a permanent compass fixed to your car as well. Directions cone not as forward or back ”but “north and south, east and west”

If you cannot see the  sun it makes for confusion. “That is not the way,” said my son, “what is wrong with this woman?”

He was obviously right. She insisted that we go along a road that had been totally blocked for construction.

We went another way and reached our destination, with  a little help from a down loaded printed Google map.

“She has done something with the thermos,” announced my grandson.

“She is not a person” explained my daughter, “she is a computer program that strings syllables  together. Besides she cannot reach out from the dashboard and take your thermos.”

“But she has made it very hot at the back.”

That is when we realized he meant thermostat!

The woman was “recalculating” long after we reached our destination and were unloading the car.

“Why can’t she keep quiet ” asked my grandson, “ She gives me a headache.”

She did not care what we thought. She recalculated till she was switched off and then continued  the next morning while she was being programmed when we restarted the next morning. She was so unhappy with our efficiency!