By Robyn, Assistant Buyer
I, like many of you, haven’t had to use a physical road map in several years. Even before my handy smart phone, I was printing out the turns and exits from Mapquest so I could drive directly to my destination without having to think. I mean, come on, maps are big, hard to fold and with the road construction we see all the time, they’ve got be incredibly hard to keep up-to-date. I don’t want to risk it. I want my smart phone with GPS to show me exactly what is going on. What happens if it doesn’t, though?
I am from Fort Smith, Arkansas and I had to go home recently for my best friend’s wedding. While there, I had someone tell me about a shortcut through the Ouachita National Forest in Oklahoma that would cut 45 minutes off of my 8-hour drive. I Google-mapped the route. I felt secure, confident and safe even though I was driving alone. I headed toward the mountains. After a few hours of singing along to the radio, it felt like I might need to be making a turn soon. I picked up my trusty iPhone, but this time it only said “DATA SERVICE UNAVAILABLE”. What?! I turned it off and on, switched from 3G to Edge and back again. All of my maps had disappeared and nothing would load.
Instead of being scared, I remembered an old friend of mine. This friend was the type that didn’t get mad for not keeping in touch. This friend was a road map. Now the only thing keeping me from Austin, TX was finding a town, a gas station and a state map of Oklahoma. It took me about 4 stops to actually find all of those things. I don’t think they get many travelers through the Ouachitas anymore. Once I had my friendly road map, though, I was back on track and feeling good about my little adventure.
I think that sometimes we forget how important road maps are. We forget the family vacations across the country armed with nothing but a stack of wrongly folded maps and hi-lighters. I realize that times have changed and it’s not always practical to go back to the basics, but I think we shouldn’t forget where things came from. Who knows, the zombie apocalypse could happen tomorrow. What would your travel plans be without the help of GPS?
(BookPeople sells maps of all different shapes and sizes. I would recommend keeping a map in the glove box of every state you spend time driving in.)
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