I recently had the good fortune to take a driving trip through the mountains and coastline of Northern California (known as Alta California prior to the Mexican-American war and subsequent Mexican Cession of 1848 but that’s an entirely different story.)
For the first time, I had the opportunity to use a GPS Navigator. It was a Garmin with a 3D view of the 2D map. I could see the real roads stretching away from me in a virtual environment.
Driving truly became a game, or I should say the car became a toy, since I had no goal other than my final destination which I had input myself. I followed every road that caught my fancy, and I zoomed out on the GPS to see which way I might want to head. If I saw a winding street that looked interesting out the window, I drove on that one for a while. If I noticed an interesting arrangement of roads on the GPS, I went to check those out too. I also asked people which were the most interesting roads for someone with plenty of time.
I wasted a lot of gas.
Next time I’ll have to drive my pedal-powered green friendly earth hybrid efficient openSource proprietary vehicular thingamabobsticle.
Highway 9 from San Francisco (via Santa Clara) to Santa Cruz was incredible. Few other cars on the road, 60 mph through constantly winding angled curves and a view from a mountaintop with few railings. Fun!
I also went to my cousin’s wedding. Congratulations Vin and Loren. It was great to see everyone. 