Where can I go?

My children gave me an early birthday present yesterday, a GPS receiver for my car! Now I am itching to go somewhere. My son had one of these devices with him when we went to Boston last summer. We had a lot of fun with it following it around the former cow paths that make up the road system in Massachusetts. It was a godsend in getting us out of Logan Airport and onto Route 2. I told him how much I liked it and how handy it would be for me to get around LA, but that wasn't a hint, honestly. As a musician, I travel a lot from one job to another. That's one of the things I like about my work, I am always finding new corners of this part of Southern California that I hadn't been to before. But while we musicians do pride ourselves on our good sense of direction, a little help doesn't hurt especially when you are running late for a gig.

I used the TomTom to get home from my daughter's house last night just to test it out even though the route is a straight shot down the freeway. I chose a male voice to tell me when to turn, etc. At first, I thought he had made a mistake when he said to stay left after a certain turn when I knew I had to stay in the right-hand lane to get on the freeway. But I later learned that at every exit he would say, stay left, meaning don't exit! The only other slight error was when he told me I had arrived at my destination when I was in front of my next door neighbor's house. Perhaps with updating and use, it will get more accurate. My son's device was very accurate.

When my son and I went for a test run, we deliberately drove off the suggested route to see what it would do. After making several of these wrong turns, the voice finally said in exasperation, "Turn around!" Last night when I was making a freeway change, I guess I swerved a bit too quickly and the thing flew off the windshield to which it was attached by a suction cup and landed on the seat beside me. I couldn't see the map anymore, but the gentle man's voice continued to guide me to my destination.