Lessons learned from an accidental off-road adventure in the early days of GPS
Most of us take GPS technology for granted, but it was once in its infancy and I was an early adopter. I had a little device that went on top of my dashboard. It couldn’t route me anywhere and it had no voice. There were no Starbucks or gas stations. I could only see my position as a fat arrow on a crude green and black pixelated map, along with my speed and direction.
One September afternoon I found myself in northern New Mexico. After eyeballing what looked like a reasonably approximate route, I decided to take the back roads from Santa Fe to Los Alamos. Who cared if I didn’t know the precise directions? I was guided by satellite power!
I would never again suffer the humiliation of stopping and asking for directions.
I left the main highway, and drove northwest through the sagebrush-dotted hills.
After about half an hour, the asphalt turned to dirt, but I was exhilarated as I drove with impunity and no paper maps. I would never again suffer the humiliation of stopping and asking for directions.
But soon large rocks and deep ruts began to fill the the road, which got steadily more rugged until I saw tree stumps growing right in front of my car’s mostly plastic grill.
I was still in denial when it dawned on me that perhaps my pixelated GPS map wasn’t quite ready for prime time, and maybe I wasn’t even on a road, but was actually in a quickly narrowing dry creek bed. It sure looked like a road on the little green screen.
As if on cue, I came around a corner and found myself facing the upper Rio Grande river, which definitely couldn’t be forded with a Chevy whatever-I-rented.
OK fine, I can take a hint. I’ll just turn around, I thought, and try to find out where I went wrong. I must have missed something back there.
Some time later, I found what looked like the original road I had wandered from, turned left, and resumed heading in the general direction of Los Alamos.
Finally, after what felt like three hours in the S.S. Minnow, I was only a couple of miles from my destination. Just as I was about to turn west onto NM 502, a padlocked chain link fence appeared across my path. I was mere inches away from the state highway, but it might as well have been 100 miles, because I didn’t have enough gas to turn around and go back to the beginning.
I got out of the car and stared at the padlock in disbelief, wondering how I was going to get around it. To my relief, a patrol car pulled up on the highway side of the fence, and the sheriff sauntered over to me to ask, “What are you doing here?”
I explained what had happened; that I’d taken a GPS adventure and gotten lost, and could he please let me out.
“Well you’re on sacred Indian land, and I’m supposed to arrest you for trespassing.”
I was incredulous and rambled, “OK maybe I missed a turn when I ended up in the dry creek, but I swear I didn’t see signs of any kind. I’m really sorry. I would never have gone this way if I’d realized I was trespassing. And my GPS didn’t say ‘Sacred Indian Land’ or ‘Reservation’ or anything like that.”
“It’s clearly marked. You can’t miss it. Wait here.”
Like I might go someplace else.
He walked back to his car, and got onto the radio. As I tried to decipher the muffled conversation, I began to ponder the phone call I was about to make from jail. I hoped my wife would be at home back in Connecticut, although this might possibly be the last time she would ever let me wander off without adult supervision.
A few minutes later, the sheriff returned and unlocked the gate.
“I just spoke with the tribal police, and apparently someone shot out the signs a few days ago, so they told me I can let you go.”
I lucked out that day, but that’s how I learned that it pays to be a bit smarter than my GPS. I’m not sure that my current GPS would agree. However, when I make mistakes from not listening, she has such a polite and reassuring British accent that I forget how stupid I am.
SMUDGED POSTCARDS 