How do you get there from here?

I grew up using maps. Now I've devolved to finding my Waze

I am old enough to remember paper maps provided by gas stations and spiral-bound TripTiks from Triple A. And despite the frustration of trying to refold a map and the forethought required in having to order a TripTik, I miss them.

Young me did not sleep (big surprise) on car trips. Hence, I was aware of routes and landmarks, first peering out of the windows of the big, blue 1952 Hudson Hornet and then the spiffy white 1960 Chevy Impala. I also was an early reader of books and, subsequently, street signs.

We had no restraints, so I could sit on the edge of my seat and take in the signage and the scenery. From my earliest (and limited) travel experience, I distinctly recall seeing the small green signs on Harbison Avenue for the Tacony Palmyra Bridge and the large sign on our route to Atlantic City that proudly proclaimed “73 All the Way!” I knew we needed to take Route 30 (a.k.a., the White Horse Pike) into Absecon. I recognized all the places that reinforced we were going in the right direction—the root beer (yuck!) stands and the Atco Speedway and the winery and the lighthouse. Trips to the shore became my navigation training ground.

As did drives to Strawberry Mansion and East Oak Lane from Northeast Philadelphia. Once we passed the TastyKake manufacturing plant on Hunting Park Avenue, I knew it wouldn’t be long before we’d get to see Mom mom Minnie and Pop pop Morris Zafran on Newkirk Street, just off Lehigh Avenue. And the right turn just before the Hot Shoppe on Broad Street meant I’d soon be ducking under the porch on Sparks Street, the smell of Mom mom and Pop pop Axelman’s spearmint enticing me to snag a leaf or two.

I liked maps. I was fascinated by the way all the roads connected. At that point, I didn’t need bifocals, a magnifying glass, or longer arms to be able to follow the highways and byways on paper. It was fun when roads were referred to by name rather than route number—like, I-95 through Philadelphia was the Delaware Expressway. And the Roosevelt Boulevard led into the newly constructed Schuylkill Expressway but in my head had yet to become I-76. You exited by name (Gladwyne), not number (337). I’ve always been more of a word person.

My only issue with handheld maps was, and still is, that I need to turn them in the direction I am going, not unlike Friends’ Joey Tribbiani, who puts himself in the map. If I wanted to head west, I turned the map so the road on the map was running to my left. Or if I was driving south, I flipped the map altogether. Are you following this?

Navigating by map probably was my second choice. My first and most reliable way of giving and getting directions likely began with someone telling me, step by step, how to go. And usually more according to landmarks than street names. Like the TastyKake factory and Hot Shoppe restaurant and the speedway and the lighthouse. Directions were hand written and included advisories like, “Pass the BP station and the little shopping center and turn right.” Or, “If you passed Rodeo Ben’s, you went too far.” Written-out directions more-or-less required that someone rode shot gun because if you were driving a totally unfamiliar route, you shouldn’t be trying to read yours (or anyone else’s) scribbled instructions, even if some of the steps were in shorthand— R for right, arrow pointing up for north, and so on. And you needed someone to help spot the landmarks.

These three-dimensional instructions became indelibly etched into my driving memory, regardless of whether I was the one with hands on the wheel or the passenger. Once I drove somewhere, I remembered the route. I had this weird talent for knowing how to get places, a good sense of direction. You’ve heard of OnStar—the safety-focused system, launched in 1996, that was embedded in Cadillacs (Bruce’s favorite car through the early 2000s)? OnStar didn’t really include a navigation system, only vehicle tracking for theft recovery. But for some reason, we associated OnStar with direction-providing features, and Bruce dubbed me BarbStar. And because I tended to use landmarks they would notice—a Roy Rogers, a favorite store or billboard—the kids called my way of describing how to get from here to there Mommy Directions.

I am getting ahead of myself. Before kids, Bruce and I would day trip to the shore or to Harrisburg to see Bruce’s friend Bob or to Washington to visit with Uncle Lee or to the Lancaster area to, in our maturity, laugh at the signs for Blue Ball and Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand. We sometimes relied on the maps in order to take alternate routes when traffic was heavy on the main roads or to enjoy some side exploration.

For longer excursions, like our fateful journey to Williamsburg nine months before Missy was born (<wink wink>), one of us would order a TripTik from Keystone Triple A. For those of you who’ve never had the pleasure, a TripTik is a booklet, spiral bound across the top, of what were called strip (or sections of) maps with your route highlighted in magic marker. For instance, if you were driving from Philadelphia to Ithaca (a trip I took with Missy to visit potential colleges), the sections of the TripTik might start with getting from our house to the Blue Route. The next section might take you up the Blue Route to the northern extension of the turnpike. The next showed your progress through the Lehigh Tunnel. The next directed you across the Pennsylvania border into New York. Each section unfolded to provide information such as points of interest and gas stations in the focus area.

TripTiks as we know them were developed in 1937. Once upon a time, Triple A agents manually created and assembled each TripTik, hence the advance ordering that was necessary. I thought these guides were part of a bygone era, but it appears they can be computer-generated and accessed online to offer a compact directory of your travel locale.

I held my title of BarbStar well into the innovation of the Global Positioning System—GPS. The NAVSTAR GPS unified navigation system concept was initiated in 1973. Five years later, a NAVSTAR satellite was launched, and by 1993 NAVSTAR was supported by a network of twenty-four satellites. Private companies began to design portable GPS devices; Magellan marketed the first, the NAV 1000, in 1989, with Garmin and Tom Tom among other manufacturers.

We continued to use BarbStar. Cars had yet to be equipped with navigation systems, and why bother with one of those plug-in contraptions when you had me?

The first time we tried to rely on a navigation system, we were on a trip to San Francisco with cousins Jackie and Walt. We rented a car to do our own tour of Sonoma wine country, none of us wanting to have to deal with a drunk bus. We accepted the rental car agency’s offer of a portable GPS. Attempting to set it up was the source of much frustration/laughter—really, how many college graduates does it take to install a GPS? Apparently, more than the four of us. Thus, we resorted mostly to following the main roads and exploring wineries with interesting names—a policy Bruce and I have maintained when stocking our wine fridge (the funnier/more suggestive the wine name, the better. Fodder for a future blog?). I remember we opted to tour the Benzinger winery because “zinger” looked and sounded (to us) like Zeiger. Meanwhile, I had not yet developed an interest in imbibing, nervous drinking and nausea (#emetophobia) went hand in hand, or bucket. So while my companions sampled the different fermented selections, I was dipping the most delicious slices of Italian bread into all manner of vinaigrette. ANYway, we found the wineries kind of by the seat of our pants and a little help from the maps available at the car rental, the GPS worthless to the technologically naive.

I am trying to recall when we started using the GPS in our cars. Getting the system to establish our route was as annoying as it was reassuring. Utilizing the guidance has varied among our vehicles through the years just enough to confuse us—sometimes the system knew where you were and sometimes you had to enter your location along with your destination. State first? Street name first? Include highways and toll roads? Often, we didn’t like the way it sent us, so we’d try to ignore the initial steps, needing help only when we got close to the final stop. By then, the recalculation software had had it with us and basically was sending us in circles until at some point my internal compass could kick in and/or we pulled into a gas station/eatery and asked for assistance. “Just get me to 95” was a familiar hue and cry. Thus, I always tried to make sure I had a pretty good idea of the directions beforehand rather than put my complete trust in my GPS.

Just when we sort of mastered entering addresses (saved destinations a bonus!) and following routes provided by our auto’s navigation, phone navigation systems became popular—synced, of course, to our car through Car Play. I would be lying if I said I know how any of this works. I don’t get the difference between Google Maps and Apple Maps and Waze, although the last one shows you cute faces of nearby Waze users when you are driving. Sometimes I can use the online directions from my destination’s website. Emphasize SOMEtimes; typing in the name and/or address into Waze is slightly more reliable. There is a navigation icon on my dashboard, but all it seems to do is put up a map. If my phone is misbehaving, the voice giving the directions isn’t audible, so I have to keep glancing down at my cell for the turn-by-turn instructions, challenging because my phone keeps going into sleep mode. Speaking of Sleep Mode, I have yet to be able to easily exit Waze—even in Sleep Mode, she’s alerting me to vehicles and police up ahead.

The last time we tried to use navigation was to get Zack to flag football practice at a nearby school field. I tried using the direction on the school’s website, thinking it would be the most direct route and save us time. It sent us down a twisty-turny road that kept dumping out onto trafficky main highways where we then had to make a quick turn to continue on the named street. We must have missed a turn—the recalculated route seemed to be sending us out of our way. I tried entering the street address of the school into Waze; I was told I was one minute away. Then it said, No. I was 3.9 miles away. Turn left. Turn left. Turn right. SHUT UP! Zack finally recognized where we were and pointed out the school. Needless to say, I went home the longer way with which I was familiar.

The older Bruce and I get, the more likely we are to drive as a pair, especially if the route is new to us. The company is always nice, of course. And the extra pair of eyes and the personal route guidance (and the reminders to watch your speed) are appreciated as well. Neither of us is completely comfortable going from here to there solely on what the GPS tells us.

Grandson Leo is the master of navigation. His phone is his Bible. I am not one hundred percent certain what system he uses. He is able to plan routes, change destinations mid-drive (e.g., locate a Burger King for a lunch stop), and redirect when cautioned about bad traffic. He delights in finding “short cuts,” which usually involves avoiding thoroughfares with lots of stoplights and instead meandering through stop sign-laden neighborhood streets. He will alter our route if it saves even a minute or two.

From years of weekly Leo-Mom mom thrifting/antiquing, I have learned I can sit back in the driver’s seat, relax, and let him tell me where I need to turn with no worries about getting lost. He is the one person with whom I am completely comfortable turning over full responsibility for getting where we/I want to go. I just have to (somewhat) watch how fast I am going, because he finds it amusing to text his mom photos of my speedometer when I exceed the posted limit.

The problem with letting someone else guide you—be it another person or some amorphous voice—is you don’t pay as much attention to the exact turns and landmarks. You get lazy about your mind’s TripTik. Your sense of direction starts to dull. You trust your internal compass less and less until you begin confirming the journey via Google. I knew I knew how to get the the new McCaffery’s market for my favorite brand of salami, but I double checked my route against Waze, which has yet to send me the same way twice. Perhaps that’s why it’s called Waze, plural.

I just hope it’s the false sense of security afforded by technology—and not my age—that’s messing with my directionality. As a test, the last few times I did a salami run, I did NOT plug the address into my phone and was able to find my way to McCaffery’s myself.

Whew! I’ve still got it.

And for those observing Yom Kippur, may you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a healthy, happy journey.

Me and my co-pilot Leo navigating our way to Lancaster. He relies on technology, and I rely on him.