Accidental Ferry Rides in Quebec

In the good old days, before we left on vacation, we used to sit down with a bunch of maps and plan out any travel, turn by turn, ahead of time. We noted any major water crossings (note: how to get across Lake Erie, here?) and towns and bodies of water along the way.            

By contrast, travel by GPS is impulsive, exciting, and full of surprises. Planning, bah! Having a GPS lulls you into a false sense of security. It also highlights how little you remember about geography.                                    

We are currently traveling in Canada, with not one, but two GPS systems—one a Garmin, the other the Navigon app for the iPhone. Sometimes we run them both at once, and it is disconcerting when the ladies disagree.

They both sound calm, reasonable, and compelling. Even when they don’t know where the hell we are.

We were traveling through Quebec from the Bay of Fundy to Quebec City. To our right lay a huge body of water that went on and on.

“I think that’s the St. Lawrence River,” I say.

“That’s a river?” my husband says. “Isn’t it awfully big?”

“I wonder how big a river has to be to be called a seaway?” I muse.

In the map-reading days, we would have known. Or we could have checked the map. On the GPS there’s a large blue unidentified blob.

Somewhere in the middle of Quebec, the ladies become confused. “There is insufficient GPS signal to navigate,” the Navigon lady—let’s call her Navvy—says.  “Will resume when able. Or do you want to simulate?”

The Garmin lady (I call her Greta) merely repeats the same, increasingly desperate word: “Recalculating. Recalculating.” On the electronic map, she has us rattling across open fields. Good thing we’re driving the SUV.

Eventually Navvy recovers, and takes charge once again. We turn Greta off, because all that recalculation makes us nervous.

All is well until we get into the city, heading for the Hotel Frontenac in Old Quebec. We follow Navvy’s directions, turn by turn, until she sends past a sign that says, “Ferry Only.”

Ferry?

And, before we know it, we are paying our $9.75 and driving onto a huge ferry boat. We park in our designated spot and look at each other.

“Huh,” I say. “Are we supposed to be here?”

My husband doesn’t want to say, either way, so he furrows his brow and says nothing.

The ferry pulls away from shore, and we are off across the mile-wide St. Lawrence. On the opposite shore, we can see the looming fortress of the Hotel Frontenac, which is reassuring. At least we know we are heading in the right direction. 

Making the best of the situation, we get out of our car and take photographs of each other, acting like this was all part of the plan.

Once on the other side, Navvy takes us on a dizzying spiral through the narrow streets of Old Quebec, a fingernail of space on either side of our car. It seems that thousands of other tourists have already found their way here, with or without GPS’s, and they mob the streets, making things more complicated.

Finally, we turn through a stone arch and we are at our destination, a beautiful castle that looks like it could withstand an assault of thousands of Anglophonic tourists.

My husband and I look at each other. We never want to move the car again.

“How do you feel about valet parking?” I say.

He’s good with it.

Welcome Back, Greta Garmin

Greta stopped speaking to me.
Was it something I said? Did she disapprove of my infrequent trips to the mall? Was I spending too much time in parking garages, while she searched for me in vain? Was I spending too much time with Google Maps?
Did I ignore her once too often?
I’ve blogged before about my love affair with my GPS, Greta Garmin. It’s easy to develop a relationship with any machine that talks to you.
Whenever I miss a turn, or choose not to follow Greta’s directions, she says, “recalculating” in an exasperated, eye-rolling tone of voice. It’s like she’s thinking, You asked me for directions, or How hard can it be to turn when I say turn? But she never gives up on me. She has endless patience, not like SOME PEOPLE. She’ll recalculate till the cows come home. Or I do.
So you can imagine my concern recently when Greta’s voice began to falter, dwindling to a strangled, truncated croak. The screen directions were still there, but that requires me to take my eyes off the road and try to focus on that little screen. I might as well try and read a map.
Desperately, I tried the British voice, the male voice—none of them spoke to me, either.
My son has the same model Garmin. His has also begun to fail—in his case, the voice is fine, but the screen has dimmed until it’s nearly unreadable. He feels comfortable reading and wrangling electronic devices in the car. He’d rather have the screen than the voice.
Put the two together and you have one fully-functional Garmin.
It used to be when I headed out on a car trip, I would consult a map, plan my route, and carry multiple maps in the car in case I lost my way (as I often did).
With Greta aboard, I just launched, confident I could find my way there and back. School visit in a small town? Piece of cake. Find my conference hotel in a city filled with one-way streets? No problemo. Take back roads to the airport in a strange town? She has my back.
Without her, I feel cut loose, orphaned, like Hansel and Gretel without the breadcrumbs.
I contacted Garmin, only to find that Greta was eight months out of warranty. But they agreed to send a refurbished unit as a good will gesture.
And now she’s back—good as new, though just a little put out at being sent away. I’ll make it up to her. We’ll take some long road trips together—just the two of us.

Miss Direction

I have this theory that the writer gene is incompatible with a sense of direction. This is based on a totally unscientific study in which my writer friend Marsha and I went out to dinner in Saratoga Springs, NY, during which we each had a glass of wine and fabulous conversation. It was dark by the time we went back out to the car. Neither of us had any idea which way to turn out of the parking lot. I proposed we sleep in the car until either the sun rose or we got arrested for vagrancy by a nice policeman who would tell us how to get back to the bed and breakfast.

Now recently, I’ve been doing a lot of school and library visits in unfamiliar places. Mapquest is my friend, but it has its limitations. Like if you really mess up you’re on your own.

Then I rode with my friend Joann to book club. I was appointed navigator and arrived with my usual fistful of Mapquest printouts. But it turned out my services were totally unnecessary. Joann has a new Chrysler Pacifica, which sails the highways like a true oceangoing vessel. It has all kinds of Jetson features including a camera in the back so you can see when you’re backing up. But the best part was the GPS unit.

“Turn left in ¼ mile,” a cool, feminine voice said as we pulled out of the Giant Eagle parking lot. And “Keep to the right to enter freeway in ½ mile.” Whoa, I thought, peering around. How does she know where we are? But I believe in magic, since lots of things are magic to me, like the entire Best Buy catalog.

I decided to call her Patsy (Pacifica, Patsy, get it?) And all the way there, Patsy coached us through every turn. It was like riding with my dad, without the swearing. I liked how she gave us plenty of notice that we had to get over to exit.

Once, despite her best efforts and the Mapquests in my hand, we made a wrong turn. Patsy didn’t lose her cool, oh, no. Not like Some People. Calculating, Patsy said, and then, “Proceed 3 miles, then turn left.”

Patsy had never failed Joann, though a few times, out of desperation, she’d suggested an illegal U-turn. Home is permanently entered into Patsy’s system. And Patsy always talks her home. (Home is the place where, if you can find it, they have to take you in.)

I’ll go anywhere, if I know I can get back home. Gotta get me one of those.