Our friend, Alice

I've got no more pictures of our trip to share with you, but I have to share a few stories with you. When I've talked about this trip, I only told you that my sister Cheri and I went. I neglected to tell you about Alice. Yes - Alice came too. We thought she was our friend, but by the time we came home we weren't so sure. Alice spent a lot of time talking to us in the car, and sometimes we talked back. Who is Alice? Alice is what we named the GPS.



The first day of our trip was quite uneventful. Alice was on her best behavior, faithfully telling us to turn left, stay on the same path, etc. The first sign of trouble came that night as we looked for our hotel. We were in Pittsburgh and we gave the address to Alice. She started us toward the hotel, but then we ran into a closed road. Usually when you go off track, the GPS will redirect you. This time, even when we drove a distance away, she kept bringing us back to the same closed road. There weren't detour signs to follow and it was getting darker. We ended up in a part of town that didn't look to great, but finally made it to the hotel. We gave Alice a break that night because we figured the closed road wasn't her fault.
The next day she took us on a detour of her own. She had us turn down a road that we wondered about, but we followed her instructions. We found ourselves in a campground. As we followed the instructions she led us through the campground and back out, like it was her plan all along.
After this, other strange things started to happen. We would be driving, Alice would tell us to turn. Immediately upon turning we would hear that familiar chime, followed by Alice saying "recalculating route". We would end up turning around and starting again.
Alice really acted up on our last day. We had checked the time of our drive home using her the night before. It was supposed to be about 11 1/2 hours. We were out of our hotel by 6:15. Imagine our surprise when Alice told us we wouldn't be home until 8:30 pm. Considering Alice's recent behavior, we were wondering where she was taking us!
You may wonder, as my husband did "why didn't you look at the map?" Well - it was in the trunk, in my suitcase! Not smart, I know.
So - we were at Alice's mercy. We started home, taking very short breaks along the way. We would gain a little time, only to lose it in construction, or a rain storm.
When we got near Lansing Michigan, Alice was telling us it would be another 3 hours. We knew at that point that it should be more like 1 1/2 hours. As we got closer to home, we saw that Alice was going to have us drive past our exit, go to Grand Haven Michigan, and then come back to Allendale. We gave her a lesson on that one, and showed her the quick route to get home!
Our drive home still took us about 13 1/2 hours which included our stops. Who knows what crazy route Alice took us on?
We decided that Alice is getting older and perhaps she has developed some dementia. We may not take her along next time!
* I have to tell you that we spent a lot of time laughing! What else can you do?