We’re headed East through Canada to upstate New York and my Mother’s side of the family’s annual reunion. It’s been fifteen years since we attended the last one. I suspect time has moved slowly in Lowville, NY, where the reunion is; but getting there has been an experience in what technology has done in the interim.
We chose to go through Canada because Google® said it was the shortest way. And, since we weren’t sure how far we’d get, we didn’t make a hotel reservation. We assumed the plan I’d put in place with Verizon before leaving Benton Harbor would work. Verizon said it would. Never trust Verizon.
I’m not sure why, but our cellphones didn’t work when we stopped in Hamilton, ON. So we had to find a motel the old fashioned way: by asking at local gas stations. In the past, you could usually get directions from the clerk on duty; but with the advent of GPS, that isn’t the case anymore. If it weren’t for that nice lady customer behind me, we might have slept in our car.
Then there were the questions of dinner, Canadian currency, purchasing gas by the liter, and getting back on the road the next morning to return to the States at Niagara Falls. I found some of this interesting, like discovering how people in other places do things; my travel partner did not.
When we return home we’re ignoring Google’s advice and bumper-to-bumpering it through Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, and Toledo.
What lesson did we learn? I can’t speak for my travel partner, but I realized just how old we’ve gotten in the ensuing fifteen years.
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