How to get lost with a GPS!

Well last Monday we had a visitor to our area.

My brother-in-law was in town for a work related conference and had a spare evening that he wanted to use to get together and see the monkeys.

As he was on one side of the Metroplex and we are on the other we were looking for middle ground to meet.

My BIL wanted to find a restaurant halfway between here and there. I simply explained that with three small monkeys, Vicky and I dine out so much that the restaurants all run together. Yea right! The budget at the Monkey Ranch being what it is, dining out is the rare trip to the local Sonic. The kids particularly enjoy looting their $4 meal for the $0.25 toy, playing with it and refusing to eat their meal. Vicky and I are now wising up to this.

I had the idea to meet at our local Cabelas. I figured since my BIL was from Massachusetts a brief exposure to a store such as Cabelas might actually do him some good. We were worried though that having him just seeing guns in Cabelas might disqualify him from ever returning to Massachusetts but that is another subject.

Well, I'd offered to pick up my BIL and drive him out. He had rented a car though and due to his last experience of getting lost in the Metroplex had requested a GPS for his rental car. I emailed him the coordinates for Cabelas and thought everything should go smoothly.

Unfortunately the map database in his GPS was about three years old. In the Metroplex three years may as well be 100 years with respect to the speed of construction around here. Needless to say, Cabelas was not in its database. No problem I told him, just punch in the coordinates I emailed, oops problem. The antiquated Magellan that is in his rental car does not allow the direct input of coordinates.

I walk him through where he needs to go given where he is at, should be no more than a 20-30 minute drive. 75 minutes later he finally arrives after having taken several scenic detours, discovered our one way frontage roads the wrong way, missed an exit or several and generally had a stressful trip out to what should have been a fun time.

Of course I was planning all week to tease him unmercifully in this blog about getting lost with a GPS. And then I was on my way down to Mesquite to run errands. Well I had my Garmin set to where I wanted to go and was merrily following the arrow and ended up not being where I wanted to be, aka lost. What was worse, I had friends with me to witness this event. Oops!