• May. 13, 2007
The Other Woman
What is it with men and technology? Hubby recently acquired a tom-tom GPS device, in hopes of keeping our marriage intact minimizing the arguments that we frequently have during our weekend sightseeing adventures. This weekend, our first full weekend away, apart from day trips, we decided to head off to Devon and Cornwall. I had our itinerary loaded up with castles, museums, old houses, monuments, beaches, and countrysides to behold!
The tom-tom was to be a great help in our travels as we went from place to place in very unfamiliar territory. And it was a help. At first. The tom-tom (for the rest of this entry to be referred to as Rita, since she has a female voice with a lovely British accent) got us out of London and through several cities with ease. At just the time Rita predicted, we were pulling into our first destination and where we were to be based for the weekend, Plymouth. It was after we entered Plymouth that the problems with Rita and hubby began. You see, he began listening to Rita instead of common sense and instead of me, his backseat driver love of nearly 20 years!
I must digress for a moment to make you aware that up until now, I have been the chief navigator on all of our excursions, and I've gotten us around the south eastern part of England quite well, thank-you-very-much. But now that Rita is in the picture, hubby seems to have forgotten all of the round-abouts and one way streets and narrow cobblestone roads he has traversed with me as his chief navigator. Hubby depends on Rita now. And to his own demise, navigationally speaking! Because like I said earlier, hubby trusts Rita now --- to a fault.
We were traveling quite well through Plymouth and heading toward our desired destinatin of the Holiday Inn when Rita began taking us past the Holiday Inn. I politely reminded hubby that Holiday Inn was now in our rearview mirror only to be told that Rita must be taking us this way because she knows that Holiday Inn is on a one way street. Well, that was a reasonable thought, so I held my tongue. It was when Rita began directing us into the parking lot of the Quality Inn that I began to question her wisdom. I laughed a bit as we pulled into the wrong hotel, assuming that hubby would reasonably conclude that Rita had gotten a bit confused and that hubby would agree that we would now need to procure directions to the Holiday Inn. Hubby, who is a slow and deliberate thinker (usually an advantage of him over me in stressful situations), then said something ridiculous beyond belief. He said, and I quote, "Well, maybe this is the Holiday Inn." WHAT?!? WERE WE IN THE SAME VEHICLE?! We had just passed the Holiday Inn and were quite obviously in the parking lot of a hotel with a sign clearly marked as the Quality Inn. Hubby, in fact, wanted to trust Rita so badly that he, the man who never stops to ask directions, went in to ask at the front desk if the hotel where we were now parked was indeed the Holiday Inn as Rita said it was! He actually went in to ask the clerk that! Now, I was getting angry at Rita. She clearly held sway over my husbands otherwise reasonable mind! Because she was technology. And technology can't be wrong. Right.
Hubby came back out to the car to inform us all that indeed we were not at the Holiday Inn. Glad to have that cleared up. I began to think at that point that I had the upper hand on Rita, since she had clearly gotten us to the wrong location. Oh, how wrong I was. Rita still had him in her seductive tech-y clutches! He began making excuses for Rita about how she had gotten us to a hotel, and that even though she was a bit wrong, we were close to it. I, on the other hand, began to rue the day that we ever allowed Rita to enter into our otherwise harmonious marriage!
After attempting to configure Rita again to the proper location, we set off again in search of the Holiday Inn. We headed off in what seemed at first like the proper direction. But at a certain point, I began to realize that we were again headed to the Quality Inn. Hubby however, kept trusting his newfound love. But in his defense, this time he didn't pull into the parking lot at the Quality Inn. Finally, we found the Holiday Inn, no thanks to Rita, who was still determined to take us to you-know-where! The only way that I convinced hubby to trust me instead of his beloved Rita was that the Holiday Inn was now in view and that fact couldn't be argued with.
I could go on and on about the various predicaments Rita placed us in. How we asked her to take us to the closest McDonald's and she took us to a parking garage, about how she never did acknowledge that there was a Holiday Inn at the correct location, about how she was very finicky about landmarks and tourist sights, often not acknowledging their existence either, and last but not least the time we wasted in trying to get her to recognize certain places, evetually even losing time at a museum because it closed while we were fiddling with her! But, I'll just show you some of the pictures from our fabulous weekend. And I'll let you decide who the navigator in our family should be from now on!
The church yard in the quaint town of Bovey Tracy
Looking out into the port of Plymouth, not far from where the Pilgrims set sail
Smeaton's Tower lighthouse in Plymouth, We could see this from our hotel window.
The indescribably beautiful Cornish coast as seen from King Arthur's Tintagel Castle
Comments
• May. 14, 2007
Untitled Comment
Posted by 2peter318
The pictures are beautiful. Even though there were problems, I'm glad you got to most of your destinations. :)
JoAnn
• May. 14, 2007
Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
Oh, Joni... I am laughing so hard-- at this: "Well, maybe this IS the Holiday Inn." HA! :) And then the asking, and the following of Rita right back to the Quality Inn. Hilarious!
I'm thinking YOU should definitely be the navigator, and Rita can be your sidekick! :)
~Stacy
www.withgreatjoy.blogspot.com
• May. 24, 2007
Untitled Comment
Posted by Emily B
OH MY!!! HAHAHHA!!! we just got one of these fancy things - a garmin something or other - so now i'm scared!!!
