I'll only take just what I need to get there!

This past weekend I had to do some work out of town.  I worked a little over 330 miles from home and ended up driving 472 miles total within a 24 hour period.  Do your own math.

It was great being on the road.
It was just me.
One guy.
On the big highway.
With nothing to guide him but the stars (and a GPS).
And no one could reach me until I got to my destination... unless of course they called me on my cell phone.
But no one called.
No.
Everyone who knew I was on the road opted to text me instead.
Like they want me to die? Granted, everyone who texted me was irritated that I did not respond until I got off the road. Seems ironic.

Anyway... how was I ever able to make a road trip without a cell phone?

In 1995 I drove up the East Coast to visit a friend in D.C. and to look for a job.  This was the longest road trip I had ever made solo up until that point in my life.  It was over an 8 hour drive.  I managed to survive, I saw the friend and I was offered a position which I turned down (in hindsight, turning that offer down was kinda stupid but that is another one of those "different story" situations).

But most importantly (no disrespect to the friend) I was able to make a trip that long without constant contact with the people I know all over the world and without a map telling me where to turn.  Seriously, I didn't even have a map.  I actually called my friend before I left my house and asked for "directions!"  It was something like "So, yeah, after you drive 500 miles on the interstate, get off at this exit.  Take a left on this road and a right on that road and.... so we'll see you whenever you show up!"

WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?  How did we ever survive as a species if that was the only way we could travel?  Surely, the Donner Party had a map?  Granted, we know for a fact that they had a cookbook, but I'm going to assume they had a map?

I don't even want to think about how people traveled before maps were invented...  If I'd been Christopher Columbus, we'd be kind of screwed to this very day.

"CHRISTOPHER? WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL HERE?  YOUR BOATS, THEY ARE OUTSIDE LOADED AND READY TO GO!?!?!?!"
"I'm just waiting for a map.  I'll get right on that pronto... just waitin for that map."

Yeah, crazy right?   I can only assume he had a good CD player on his boats to keep everyone thoroughly entertained?

HAH.. "CD Player"  I have one, but I was recently introduced to the joys of Bluetooth and Pandora radio for my cell phone and car stereo.  Sadly, I was unaware for some time that I could "connect" my phone to my stereo.  Apparently magical spirits make one of those ant bridges from my phone to my stereo and now I can talk to people INSIDE MY STEREO and listen to music FROM MY PHONE!!!  Okay, so I'm kidding... the people aren't in my stereo.  They're invisible (like the magical ant bridge spirits) and on the other side of the stereo... I assume...

 

How my stereo works.

In fact, it wasn't until two days ago that I actually played a CD in my car.  My child wanted to listen to my Missing Persons Greatest Hits CD.  She is fascinated that she can hold the actual case the music comes in.  She's so low-tech!

I've listened to CDs in my truck before, as I've had the thing for many years, but my stereo broke and I got  a new one about a year ago.  I paid extra for the magical spirits.

So, I listen to my music on my stereo from my phone.  And when people call me (which they didn't) I talk to them through my stereo.  Seems legit.

Now on top of that, I can call up a GPS on my phone and it will talk to me through my stereo and tell me when and where I turn.  Of course, I have an iPhone, so the map sucks.  I also have a GPS that I connect to my windshield (I'm so old fashioned I know).  So I connected that GPS and let it battle it out with the phone GPS.  Oh they did NOT agree a lot.  I opted to trust my window mounted GPS when my phone told me "In six miles take exit 194" just as I was passing exit 194.

For added GPS entertainment, I raced my GPS.  I hope I'm not the only one who does that?  You know, you set your GPS to take you where you want to go and it says you will arrive at your final destination by 11:29 and then you spend the next 236 miles trying to beat that time while not speeding (excessively).  I managed to beat mine, this time, and I arrived at my final destination at 11:22.  BOO... YAHHH!!!!

I was very grateful for Pandora occupying my mind.  It is, quite sadly, much better than radio.  I appreciate the FM but fear it may soon be gone.  I can remember being a kid in Chicago riding a few hours down the road with my Dad and we would listen to one channel the whole trip.  That one channel would changes stations six or seven times it seemed like.  You might be listening to 780 (AM was bigger in the 70s) which is a rock and roll station in one town but as soon as you pass into another town, some country station owns that channel and BOOM you're listening to country.  This would go on and on, "town to town, up and down the dial..." and you were never allowed to change the channel, because, DAD SET IT ON THAT CHANNEL!!!!

So I had my Pandora set to one channel and that channel was "80's Alternative."  AWESOME!!!  It's choc-ful-o 80's variety and it never goes staticy and it never changes.  I must admit that I was unaware how popular the "clap track" was in music back in the 80's.  It was seconded only by the "snap track."

There were some very serious Clap and Snap artists in the 80's I should tell you (I refuse to believe it was synthesized; not in the 80s) and some of these artists have better won Grammys!  I think the greatest Snap Clap homage had to be Queens' and David Bowies' "Under Pressure!"  What a Snap Clap Trap work of art!!!

I had a lot of time to think about all of this on the road.

I do have to say, that I think I've lost the pioneering spirit I once had.  The cell phone and GPS have become a security blanket and a blessing, but damn, there's not always a whole lot of fun in that!