GUIDANCE FROM ABOVE

We’ve been gone.  After spending the whole winter at home we decided  we should take a road trip before the growing season tied us down for the next five or six months.  Besides, the Albertan grandsons had a week off school and their dad had a home improvement project that grandpa could come help with.  Grandpa is not good at just sitting and visiting but give him a fence to build or a bathroom to renovate and he’s happy.  Just ask the Australian family – they know they have to keep him busy or he’ll go home.

And, since we were driving all the way to Alberta, I thought it would be nice to drop in on my sister and brother in Calgary, and then on to have lunch with a nephew in Bowden ... you know, since he was ‘on the way’ to our final destination.  You’ve got to make it count when you finally get these two country bumpkins off the farm.

It meant for a lot of miles.  Not that we haven’t travelled farther, but mostly on our adventures we let an airline take over for the major miles.  This time it was all on us – the aforementioned country bumpkins. 

It’s not that we don’t go places; it’s just that they tend to be much the same places, over and over again.  Most common destination – our home town, a whole seven miles away.  The next most likely destination – the closest of the grandchildren, an hour’s drive - an all rural route.   From there on we do branch out to slightly more urban trips for doctor, dentist, and eye appointments but on a much less regular basis. 

A few weeks ago there was a news story about how SGI was saying that drivers were not tested on how to properly use the merge lane because rural driver’s tests didn’t have merge lanes available to be tested on: that’s the world we come from.  We know how to drive on loose gravel.  We are experienced at watching for wildlife.   We know which back roads take to avoid being stuck behind a combine for five more miles: these are the things that keep city drivers in their cities.  Merge lanes and off ramps and multiple turning lanes and heavy traffic are what makes us think twice about striking off on big adventures.

But ... enter modern technology.  Thank goodness.

Our car has quite a few bells and whistles.  Put it in reverse and it immediately shows a bird’s eye view of the whole area.  It’s kind of freaky because there is no camera dangled above the vehicle and it can’t be a satellite feed because it even shows the inside of the garage with the door closed.  Never-the-less, you can see yourself driving out of the yard.  And, if you missed seeing something on the screen it will buzz your butt to tell you “look again”.  Likewise, it doesn’t want you leaving your highway lane unless you signal, gently tugging the steering wheel back into proper alignment.  It’s hardly going to be an adjustment when we get our first driverless car – they’ve been easing us in that direction for years.

The very best thing it has, though, is GPS.  Tell her where you want to go and she will take you there.  No paper maps sprawled out over the dash.  No second guessing where you should have turned.  No ‘in the wrong lane to turn’ or ‘disappearing lane’ panic attacks. 

So calming for a person’s nerves.  So good for overall trip enjoyment.  So helpful for sustaining a marriage.

As this comforting, knowledgeable, trustworthy voice, with her corresponding split screen view of what to expect calmly led us through traffic in unfamiliar cities we decided that she definitely was our friend and therefore rated a name.  I offered a few suggestions but none of them seemed to fit.

By this time we were winding our way through Saskatoon on our journey home.  The farmer beside me made an observation that our GPS friend was sure smart and thought maybe we should just call her Smarty-pants, but then decided that this was too disrespectful for someone who meant so much to us.

No t long afterward though, he told me he had thought of the perfect name: Angel.  Full name: Guardian Angel.  She watches over us.  She guides us.  She looks down us from above.  Her voice comes to us from the heavens.  Need I say more?

Makes me want to download Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky for our next road trip.