'Oh, yes ... there WILL be mecha.' by Kara
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 8:06 AM

I've not mentioned my new GPS, have I?

Well, I had to drive myself to Katsucon this year, and I couldn't park by the metro and ride in because I had too much stuff to load and unload. I have the worst sense of direction of anyone I know. I mean, if you think someone you know has a bad sense of direction, I guarantee they could still find their way out of Richmond at midnight faster than I could.

I remembered my g'father had been trying to foist his old GPS on me after he got a new one, but I wasn't in the mood to fuss with anything else in Goldy. However, faced with the prospect of driving to D.C. alone on a Friday, I changed my mind.

This is what I ended up with. Once I actually got it to want to stay put on my dashboard, I gave it several tests around Newport News and Williamsburg. It seemed fine, but when I left Katsu-Friday morning I still wrote down some directions.

Which I did not use at all.

That little thing is genius. I mean, serious genius. If you go the wrong way, it beeps at you and recalculates. If you keep having trouble with its directions, it gives up and takes you down a different road entirely. It also accounts for overpasses, which was a problem my Weird Uncle had had with his (which he named Chloe). I got turned around a few times because it's D.C. for God's sake, but once I learned to actually trust the thing, I had no trouble getting around. None of the usual 'Oh God I'm so lost' scares that usually come with driving alone long-distance for me.

I think a lot of the worry that comes with driving a long way for me is knowing that I'm likely to get myself turned around, and thus being nervous about going anywhere new from the get-go. Leaving on Katsu-Sunday and being decidedly not nervous was a novel experience. And very nice.

Thank God it'll also find gas stations for me, because that's a big part of my problem, too.

If you have been, don't be so surprised.