My Buit-in GPS

I was born with an innate sense of direction.  If I go somewhere once, I can get there again.  If I know approximately where something is, I can wind my way there and eventually arrive at my destination, I just seem to know which way to go.

If such a thing is genetic, I definitely inherited it from my father. When I was about 10 years old, my parents sold the trailer they had at Atlantic Beach, NC and bought a condo at North Myrtle Beach, SC.  The first 10 times we went to the new place, we never went the same way twice.  I can clearly remember Dad say "let's try this way!"  We always got there, and usually in about the same amount of time as any other route.

It always surprises me when people don't have any idea where they are, whether within a state, a city, or even a building.  I was at a meeting in another building yesterday, and they took us on a tour of the facilities afterward.  We wound down several halls and through several doors, and when it was time to leave one of the other attendees made a joke about the tour guide needing to lead us out of there.  But even though it was my first visit to that building, I knew exactly how to get back to the lobby, and even the quickest way without actually backtracking the way we had come.

I'm not above using the GPS on my phone.  I often do when I'm driving somewhere new.  But I tend to pull up the address on the GPS, see where it is, & then turn the GPS off again most of the time unless I'm in a completely unfamiliar area.  Rob, however, has no sense of direction.  The best gift I've ever given him is the Garmin GPS I gave him before cell phones all had them built in.  He would be lost (literally) without it.

We're always in a hurry these days to get where we're going, and a GPS can usually get us there the best and fastest way.  But there's something to be said for taking the long way, or the back road, that might take a little bit longer, and some days I just can't resist the urge to say "let's try this way!"