On my recent trip to Ohio and Indiana, I had my first experience with a Global Positioning System. One came unsolicited in my Hertz rental car and it proved to be a handy thing to have. I'd printed out Mapquest guides for everywhere I had to drive but it was nice having the screen tell me that I was actually on the road I thought I was on, and having Henrietta (as I named the voice that comes out of the Hertz Neverlost® system) telling me when I was nearing a turn. For that reason — and the fact that it's a gadget and I must have all gadgets — I decided to get me a G.P.S. when I returned home.
I did a bit of study and got some advice from my friend, Marv Wolfman, who has one in his auto. It all pointed me to the Magellan Roadmate 2000, in part because it's nearly identical to the Hertz Neverlost® device I'd used on my trip. It's even the same Henrietta.
I've had my new Henrietta for a week, during which I haven't had to go anywhere I couldn't locate with my eyes closed…but I've been using the Roadmate anyway, just to get used to it and to learn what I could learn about the thing. I've learned, first of all, that there's no non-awkward way to install it in my car. I tried a number of different ways, including a special mount that I ordered over the Internet and which is supposed to clamp the thing onto any air vent on your dashboard. It did but since all my air vents rotate, the G.P.S. jiggled and moved out of position at the slightest touch of its touchscreen…and there seemed to be no way to make that mount work. I finally went back to using the suction cup connector on the inside of my windshield and it's functional but not ideal. Wherever I position it, it's in the way of something and so is the cord that goes from it to the cigarette lighter for power.
Beyond that, I'm reasonably happy. Henrietta has a tendency to send me down major streets when smaller ones would be more efficient, and she's not always correct about which route is either the shortest or quickest. But she also isn't far wrong and if I were driving on unfamiliar turf, I'd be quite satisfied with her directions. From here to my mother's house in non-rush hour traffic is twelve minutes the way I usually go. Following the path dictated by Henrietta today, it was fifteen.
She's good but she has an unfortunate tendency to nag. Today, she wanted me to take a turn that would have sent me down Wilshire Boulevard. (Henrietta loves Wilshire Boulevard. When Marv and I went to lunch in his car, we were driving down 6th Street to a restaurant that was located on 6th Street. She kept telling him to turn right and go down to Wilshire.) Anyway, today when I didn't cut over to Wilshire and went another way, she started ordering me to make a safe and legal U-Turn and to get my ass back to Wilshire. She didn't exactly phrase it that way but you could tell she wanted to.
I'll report more on Henrietta as soon as I go somewhere I've never been before.