Sandra has a newfound love and addiction---Beatrice, our GPS. Well, she still calls her Beatrice but I call her a different B word, and that's not for B I N G O. We don't listen to music because we might not hear B.... mostly recalculating. And that, I might add is Beatrice's favorite word--recalculating.
But let me digress. Since acquiring Beatrice, Sandra has become so accustomed to giving me directions that she gives me directions in our own home town. Just before this trip we were taking our 12 year old granddaughter home and on our way to Bailey's house Sandra says, "You turn on that street". Bailey yells, "Barbara, don't you know where I live?" I respond, "Of course I do, Bailey." At which point Sandra CLARIFIES "Yes, but we're taking a different route". I kid you not, I have taken that route 500 times, and Sandra suddenly feels a need to give me directions.
But let's get to our present trip. I started this trip kind of thankful for Beatrice. She can be very handy for finding restaurants, hotels, stores, parks and she can even get an estimate on how long it will take you to get somewhere without stops. She can be handy, but she does not need to be on constantly. But Sandra wants her on all of the time-----ALL of the time. She fiddles with her constantly. We get in the car--fiddle. Stop for gas---fiddle. Drive--fiddle. Stop---fiddle, drive----fiddle. In my opinion, the best use of a GPS is to set it to your final destination and let her calculate and tell you how to get there. But that's not how "we" use her. "We" tell HER how to go. "We" set her to how we want her to go. And "we" apparently change that or do something with her constantly. I'm really not sure what requries all that fiddling. Now the weirdest part of this is that we have been on the one and only road that goes to Jasper-- for four days. One day we drove on that road for so many hours we went through two time zones. There is absolutely no need for Beatrice to be on constantly. It'd be nice to turn her on to find restaurants or our hotel, but I can see no reason what so ever for her to be on all day and night. T
When we finally are in a situation where one could choose to use Beatrice or a map--or one's sense of direction-- Sandra considers Beatrice the Almightly and All Powerful Directions Goddess and I dare not argue with her OR Beatrice. If I dared to distrust Beatrice it was akin to telling someone that their kid isn't perfect. We had already been down that road years ago so this time I figured it was better to leave well enough alone. We had a lot of weeks ahead of us with Beatrice at the helm for better or for worse.
After three weeks of listening to Beatrice tell us how to get to places that don't require even a map, let alone a GPS, I finally got up the courage to ask Sandra why she has a need to have Beatrice on at all times.
Are you ready for her answer? This is for real. Here is her answer. "So I can see when we are going around curves and over rivers and stuff" That's it folks. That's why I have to listen to Beatrice for our entire trip--so Sandra can watch her go around curves and over rivers and stuff. I refrain from pointing out that she might appreciate the trip more if she would look at the real curves in the road and the real rivers. Who am I to judge, though. She obviously has a clear choice, and her choice is staring at Beatrice.
But my real problem with Beatrice is that she isn't reliable when we DO need her. When we are not on roads that stretch on for days, my primary conversation with Sandra is, "Am I listening to her?" I feel like I've asked that question 100 times. Or Sandra's side of our conversation is, "Don't listen to her." "Yes, Listen to her" "Ignore her." "Why didn't you turn?"
I can tell you exactly when I renamed Beatrice. While back East we visited my sister and her husband for a week. In that week we became pretty familiar with their courntry roads and neighborhood. When we were ready to leave, my sister reminded us how to get out from their neighborhood. Her husband repeated the directions. We had them in our heads. Sandra got in the car and fiddled. We got to the end of the road where both my sister and my brother in law said we should turn right. We stopped at the stop sign I recognized the road and knew we should turn right. Even Sandra said she thought we should turn right. But not Beatrice. No, Beatrice boldly announces, "Turn LEFT". LEFT!! Oh my God. What are we going to do now? I KNOW what we are going to do. I know exactly what we are going to do. We are going to listen to that Beloved Directions Goddess because she might know a better or faster way. If she says LEFT, then you better believe I am turning left. So here we go. "Left, Right, Left Left." We even get to a point where a sign says, "No Outlet" and Beatrice boldly directs us "left" into the No Outlet road. I guess we are supposed to believe that she is going to find a way out of "No Outlet" before we get to the end. But no, we abruptly get to the dead end and what does Beatrice say? "Recalculating".
"Recalculating". "Recalculating". I say to Sandra, "Sandra, can we PLEASE turn her off?" And Sandra says, "Well, now we need her to get us out of here". And unfortunately, she was right because I didn't have any maps for the tiny roads we ended up on. So Sandra fiddled a bunch of whatevers and a full half hour later we passed my sisters road--- again.
More fiddling-----"Don't listen to her".
(me, as turn offs are coming up) "Do I listen to her now?"
"Yes, No, Yes, I don't know. Just take this turn off and see if she finds us."
(Finds us? I think to myself. How did we get lost?
We got lost because Sandra was fiddling with her again. She is constantly pushing buttons.
The experience at my sister's house finally created one little spark of doubt in Sandra's mind about her beloved Beatrice but she still defended her to the hilt.
"I must have done something wrong when I programmed her" she defended
"Maybe she hadn't found us yet. Maybe we should have given her more time to find us".
Her ultimate defense of Beatrice, however, was "Maybe she wouldn't cooperate because you called her B....,
Sandra tried to appear like she was kidding, but deep down I know she was offended that I called her Beloved Beatrice--- B.....
And this is only week three.
Addendum: Beatrice remained on for the entire five week trip. Camera batteries could go dead, computers could go dead, cell phones could go dead, but Beatrice remained plugged in at all times. Oh, and Sandra came as close as she has ever come to getting carpal tunnel. She is quicky healing, however, so get-well cards are unnecessary and we will avoid further trips until her wrists are entirely healed.
Morning walk to a beaver pond. No one around for our 3 hour hike.
I knew that every pine needle had a line for breathing, but this shows how the birch trees have a similar way of "breathing" through every single leaf. Also, that's what makes them look like they are "quaking".
This bear was beside the road and so interested in eating berries that he didn't care at all about us photographing him. Always a thrill to see a bear. He is the second one we've seen on the trip.
This is Maligne Lake, one of the many, many gorgeous lakes. Photos don't do this place justice at all. We should have taken video because everywhere you turn is another photo. I take about 300 pictures a day, and try to boil them down to about ten. 300/day doesn't do this place justice, let alone trying to capture it with ten. Impossible.
