Travel tips with Tina

By far, the best purchase I made for this road trip was a Garmin GPS Navigational System. (Doesn't it sound official?) I call mine--and everyone else's--Tina, since that's the name that popped to mind the very first time I heard a GPS giving verbal directions from my mom's dashboard however many years ago. (I'm strangely proud of the fact that my whole family and now all of my mother's friends call theirs Tina, too--though I felt a pang of regret and jealousy when I recently heard a friend refer to hers as Eartha and realized that's a way better name.)

I guess having unlimited data on a smartphone would serve roughly the same purpose, but I am too stingy for that, and wifi doesn't reach everywhere I am going, so Tina is my gal. It is SO LIBERATING not to have to worry about planning out exactly where I want to go in advance and write down painstaking directions or pour over maps to figure things out if, god forbid, a detour or side stop is desired or required. I just turn to Tina. It's been GREAT.

That said, I have to say that until I had my own Tina, I didn't really understand her power. I remember watching that episode of The Office in which Michael drives his car into a pond because his Tina tells him to do it, with Dwight in the passenger seat yelling, "Michael, no! Michael, stop!" I think The Office is hilarious, but I didn't find that scene funny at all. 

Now, though, I totally appreciate and identify with that scene. I understand how easy it is to become totally reliant on Tina and the sense of urgency and pressure that comes when she is telling you to turn and there are multiple roads and lots of cars you can't totally understand exactly where or when and what if you get it wrong and there is traffic bearing down on you and her voice is so authoritative and OH MY GOD WHAT DO I DO?!? And there's this weird fear of disappointing her. Like if I miss a turn, she must be shaking her head and sighing to herself. I know it's stupid, but I swear, I've caught myself toward the end of a multi-hour drive wondering if she's proud of me for having made it so far in our day's trek and whether she's excited that we're almost there. Our. We. Like she's an actual person. A road tripping companion. My mom's friend D (whom, with great sadness, we dropped off at the airport in Halifax on Saturday morning for her flights home) at one point during her two weeks as part of the CRV travelin' party declared that she thought she might buy a Tina when she got back so she'd have some company in the car. Clearly it's not just me who has delusions of Tina being more than just a computerized voice.

I'm trying hard not to cede my will to her entirely, though. Having several times failed to even glance at a map before telling Tina where I wanted to go and following her instructions blindly on a route that didn't make the most sense, I'm now making an effort (usually) to have a decent idea of the roads best taken and the towns I should be passing through. Letting Tina pave the way rather than dictate it. Plus, her knowledge of the roads of Nova Scotia leaves something to be desired, I have to admit. She's like anyone who gives advice: speaking from her own understanding of the world...But at some point, you gotta decide for yourself if there's a different way that makes more sense for you, especially as she might not be programmed with all the most relevant and updated maps, as it were.

My lovely mother drove (ha, ha) this lesson home for me just the other day. She was at the helm for the drive from an afternoon of kayaking in the tiny Eastern Shore town of Tangier to that night's lodgings in Port Hawkesbury. Tina gave us a 0.7-mile warning that we needed to turn left soon. My mother stiffened slightly behind the wheel, very obedient to Tina's authority. Just as we started crossing a bridge over one of the dozens and dozens of lovely, evergreen-lined ocean bays of the area, Tina spoke up again: "In point two miles, turn left, onto 372 north." My mother braced herself and began to look desperately to the left, where there was nothing but bridge railing and water. "After the bridge, Mom," I tried to calm her. But before we'd really left the bridge, Tina gave her final warning: "Turn left onto 372 north." In other words: NOW. I could tell my mom was struggling with overwhelming cognitive dissonance. The tension in the car was palpable. Tina was telling her to turn, but there was nowhere to turn. The world was going MAD! 

On the left after the bridge, the only thing in sight other than trees was a narrow, potholed, dirt-and-gravel driveway plunging steeply to someone's bay-side, private residence. My mother slammed on the brakes and seemed to be preparing to turn into the bumpy driveway, though at the same time she knew it couldn't be right. All the sudden, my brain clicked and I almost started laughing out loud as I remembered "Michael, no! Michael, stop!!!" (And it's all even funnier because my mom HATES The Office and all its characters, especially Michael.) 

Anyway, here's a moral of the travelin' story for you. Take your Talking Tina, in whatever form she exists in your life, into consideration. Sometimes she has dang great advice and can save a lot of time and heartache. But don't take her so seriously that you're afraid to make your own judgement calls when need be. I now understand that that kind of thing is like driving into a literal or proverbial lake. Or both. Travel tips!