GPS...the new HAL?

Recalculating...turn right into Gulf of Mexico

I'll be the first to admit it: when I'm going somewhere new, I'll either plop the address into Google Maps, or program it into my Garmin (who I've named Jack, since that's the male American English text-to-speech voice name, and it's more satisfying to yell, "Shut up, Jack!" when I do something he doesn't like).

Imagine my dismay when I realized that no matter how many avoidances I programmed into Jack, he'd never take me straight down US 1.  You see, the GPS device is marketed to today's driver: get there as quickly as possible.  This makes you re-think the role of your GPS if you're taking a meandering route (or very specific, like my trek).  I tried everything I could think to map a direct route down US 1, using Google Maps and Microsoft Streets and Trips.  Each time, regardless of instructions, the software decided that because it was a longer journey, I must want to take the fastest possible route.  I had to manually drag the route, using either program, to stay on US 1.  Each day's map took me about 30 to 45 minutes to program...and even then, I couldn't successfully transfer it to Jack.  (That may be either due to my incompetence, or the ridiculous number of waypoints that each leg of the journey entailed.)

Now why, you may ask, would you need a GPS for this road trip?  It's simple, right?  Go to the end (or beginning, however you want to look at it) of US 1, and follow the signs.  Not so fast.  I have discovered, the hard way, that most of the big cities along US 1 have some issues with signage.  As in, there's little to none.  (Providence, Rhode Island, I'm looking at you.)  Boston wins the prize for signage, but it's a cheat: US 1 there is an expressway.  Jack did his part well: I could use him as a map that tracked my progress, and if I lost US 1 (more often than I expected), I would zoom the GPS display out and hope the little US 1 shield would pop up again.  Between Jack the Garmin and Google Directions on my Nexus S running Gingerbread 2.3.4 (it's FREE, you Apple snobs!), I almost always found my way after circling back.  (Again, I'm looking at you, Providence.  And Pawtucket, for that matter.)  Paper maps of the big cities along the route might have been useful...but yours truly only went for state maps.  After all, US 1 will be easy to follow, right?

But the number one piece of tech that I used for this road trip was the most complex computer on the face of the planet: the human brain.  Yes, there was a time when we didn't have talking computers in our cars that told us when to turn.  We looked at maps.  We followed road signs.  And when those failed us, if we didn't have a Y chromosome, we stopped and asked for directions.  Yep, there's that "get out of the car and talk to the locals" thread again.

I think Jack knew that I wasn't using his mapping function after Quebec.  So he sent me on the most bizarre route possible to get to Fort Kent, ME.  I ended up on a dirt road with inclines steeper than 50 degrees.  I felt like I was driving on a dirt-track roller coaster, rather like the streets of San Francisco -- the actual streets, not the 70s tv show -- but with towering pines on either side.  And no pavement.  The trusty Saturn VUE and I came out the other end in one piece, only to find that we intersected with the paved road Jack had guided us off of.

Did I hear that Garmin snicker?

Lost in Translation

Growing up in Metro Detroit, I've always taken Canada for granted.  Crossing the Detroit River to Windsor has been a rite of passage for 19 year olds looking for beer for as long as I can remember.  (Yes, they could find other things, but that would be another blog altogether.)  What doesn't come immediately to mind as a Michigander is the fact that Canada is officially bilingual.

This fact was brought to the here-and-now as I stopped at the border between Vermont and the province of Quebec.  "Bonjour, hi," the customs agent said, almost as one word.

Remember I said that Canada is officially bilingual?  Yeah, that's for the English speaking provinces only, evidently.  Quebec has zero signage in English, at least where I was, and a good part of that was travelling along Autoroute 20, a major east-west freeway comparable to a US Interstate.  I was okay reading the French signage -- I took French in junior high and high school -- and my trusty Garmin seemed on target, despite mangling the pronunciations.  But then again, he does that for English words, as well.

My problem came when it was time for a break.  McDonald's is my favorite bathroom stop; the facilities are generally well maintained, and there's hardly a stretch in the US where a Macs is more than 30 miles away.  I stood looking at the menu above the mob of Francophones and panicked.  I couldn't find my favorite grilled chicken sandwich, and for the life of me, I couldn't remember how to say "grilled".  For some reason, I thought that the drive through would be a better choice.

Um, no.

After a barrage of French issued from the speaker, I asked, "Parlez-vous Anglais?  English?"

Awkward pause, and the general idea of "no".

I pushed ahead and tried to order a grilled chicken sandwich with a diet Coke.  I ended up with a crispy chicken sandwich, regular Coke, and french fries which I didn't realize I'd ordered.

The only other time I had to stop in Quebec, I decided to go inside.  It was a quieter place, I used the international spread-your-hands-up-and-down to show a large drink, and tried my french again.  The young cashier smiled and gave me the thumbs up.

So yet again, it's better to talk to the locals face-to-face, even if part of what you say gets lost in translation.

When getting there isn't half the fun

A symbol for road construction?

Sometimes driving from one end of a road to the other is a bit more complicated than it sounds, particularly if you live nowhere near either end.  When I initially decided to embark on this road trip, I had planned to fly into Maine, rent a car and drive from Fort Kent to Key West.  This plan changed drastically when I actually priced renting that car.  For a two-week rental, picking up in Bangor and dropping off in Key West, it would cost nearly $3,000.

That's not a rental, that's a down payment on a new car.

So I decided to drive from Michigan.  1,028 miles through Ontario, upstate New York, Vermont, and Quebec.  Not being a long-haul trucker, I split this drive in two.  The first day was twelve hours of driving, mostly through Ontario.  I do not recommend driving 12 hours on your own.  It's really difficult after about hour nine, especially when you lose the daylight.

Yes, I could have made it easier on myself and just stayed in Canada that first night, especially since I was heading through Quebec the next day.  But another of my "quests" overruled common sense.  I'm collecting the Hampton Inn key cards that say, Welcome to *name of state*.  I didn't have one from Vermont.  Which is why after 11 hours of driving, I found myself in pitch blackness on the two-lane roads of upstate New York, being literally rained on by thousands of bugs.  No, I'm not exaggerating.  The cloud of bugs was so thick that it sounded like rain as they committed suicide on the front of my VUE.

That first day was about the wildlife.  From the snail I saw outside the Currency Exchange in Windsor, to the kamikaze bugs in New York State, I marked the miles by the fauna I saw.  I even called out a greeting to Champy, the Loch Ness-type monster that's rumored to live in Lake Champlain.

I cannot overstate the feeling of gratitude that swept over me as I pulled into the parking lot at the Hampton Inn Burlington (which is actually in Colchester.  Go figure.).  12 hours of driving is something I'm going to try very hard to avoid in my future.

The Incredible US 1 Road Trip

On my first visit to Key West, I saw all of these souvenirs with "Mile 0" on them.  That led me to the sign on Whitehead street where US 1 ends...and begins.  Being a lover of details has led me to do some odd things, such as visiting the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England in order to stand on the Prime Meridian.  Looking at a road sign that declares "US 1 ends" immediately presented a challenge:  find the beginning, and drive the whole road.

So, after diligently saving two years' tax refunds, I'm doing just that.  Starting in Fort Kent, ME, I'm driving all the way to Key West on US 1.

Now that's a road trip. 

Why Road Trips?

Our country is huge.  Amazingly so.  Sure, it's exciting to be able to get on a plane and be thousands of miles away in a couple of hours -- no, wait, TSA has kind of taken the "exciting" out of that...  Okay, you could get on a plane and be thousands of miles away from your starting point in a couple of hours.  But you can't get a real sense of the United States that way.

Driving the roads from here to there helps you to understand what makes our country tick.  You interact with people from places that you're not from, even it's just for a few seconds while you pay for gas.  Are they friendly?  Do they have an accent?  Do they call pop "soda"?  Do they measure distance in miles or time?

And if you get off the Interstates, you really get to meet the locals.  Ask for a recommendation for food.  Is there a local point of pride?  How about local history?  Did George Washington sleep there?  All you have to do is slow down and ask.

My favorite hobby is travel.  I couldn't wait to get on a plane, pre-9/11, and go somewhere.  But I realized that I wasn't seeing the country that I live in, just airports and the destination I'd chosen.  So I'm on a quest now to visit every state in the country, mostly by car.  (My trusty 2003 Saturn VUE cannot make the trip to Hawai'i.  And Alaska might be a stretch.)  I've already driven Interstate road trips that have taken me through the middle of our the country, as well as the Dakotas and the Great Lakes states.  I've learned more than any Wikipedia article could ever tell me, just by being there.  And I want to share what I've learned with you, and maybe encourage you to drive it, rather than fly.