Give-a Garmin, Day 3

Rose was driving when she discovered we needed gas–quickly. We saw nothing for several miles so I looked on the nuvi for the closest gas station. It took us to the next exit, then a couple of miles down the road there was a small gas station, just in time. Next, we needed to think about a motel as we knew it would be later by the time we reached Louisville. It took me a minute to remember how to get to another city on the nuvi and then I pressed Lodging with the list of possibilities appearing. We chose Holiday Inn Express and the address with the telephone number popped up on the screen. After calling to make a reservation we pressed Go and we were directed to our motel arriving about 8:00 p.m. We were getting the hang of the nuvi.

On day three, we arrived in Williamsburg and the Garmin delivered us to our motel. We spent two days sightseeing and shopping with the nuvi guiding us to and from Yorktown and Jamesport. Such a pretty area with so much history to absorb in the small amount of time we had to be there. Day five, we made it to Baltimore and again made motel reservations using the nuvi. Several stops were made along the way so it was again dark by the time we got to the motel. The nuvi was such a help and time saver in a strange city when we were tired.

The real test of our driving and navigation skills was the day we headed to Boston, but I was feeling pretty confident. You really can’t get off track very long because if you do make a wrong turn the nuvi will redirect you to the correct route. We made it around Philadelphia and through New York right to our motel in Rockland, Ma. outside of Boston without incident. After checking in we used the nuvi to find a restaurant as we didn’t see anything close by the motel.

Friday, October 20th, was our first day to tour the Boston area and it was pouring down rain so we decided to visit the John F. Kennedy Library. We could drive there, park in their parking lot, and later take the free shuttle to the train going to downtown Boston. The Kennedy Library came up under Attractions, Museum/Historical on the nuvi, so after pressing Go we were on our way in heavy traffic and rain with no problems. The next day was cool, but sunny, so we drove to the nearest train station with the help of our new best friend to again tour Boston. On Sunday, we decided to visit Martha’s Vineyard leaving my van at the ferry’s parking lot. I have to say this little outing was farther from our motel than we anticipated and by the time we returned that night we were glad to have had the Garmin with us.

It’s not that we didn’t want to see more of the Boston area, but time was running out and there were things to see in Maine. Our goal on Monday was to spend the night in Portland, Me., and using the nuvi we made a reservation at the Fairfield Inn. At this point, I changed the route preference on the nuvi from Faster Time to Shorter Distance as we wanted to take the scenic highway. As always, our progress was slow as we found little places we wanted to check out like Yummies Candy Store in Kittery, Me. and the little shops in Kennebunkport. We relied on the nuvi once again to find a place for us to eat after reaching Portland and then, we were really ready for a night’s rest.

The next day started by visiting Two Lights, Cape Elizabeth and Portland Head Light with our final destination being Bar Harbor. After taking many pictures we managed to get back on Highway 1, at least, for a little while. When we stopped for lunch in the little town of Freeport we discovered the L.L.Bean complex and that required some serious shopping. So the good news was we managed to see the lighthouses plus fit Christmas shopping in our day and the bad news was going to be another late arrival. We enjoyed our time in Bar Harbor and seeing this beautiful area even though we didn’t realize before we came that many things in this town closed by the end of October.

We started home on October 25th and relied on the nuvi to get us though the heavy traffic of New York City setting our sights on Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Kansas City. We had long ago put our sack of maps away as we didn’t need to mess with getting them out. Saturday, October 28th, I pulled up at Rose’s home in Lee’s Summit, Mo about 4:30 pm and unloaded her things, then to Nora’s home in Raytown, Mo. and I was home in Leawood, Ks. about 5:30. It was a wonderful trip, even if we did cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time–we saw the brilliant colors of fall still in play, areas rich in history, and picturesque towns along the coast. We agreed the Garmin nuvi made the trip more enjoyable and relaxing–we wished we had had it on our trip last year through the Smoky Mountains and will definitely take it next year on our yet to be decided trip. It gave us the confidence to travel not only in heavy traffic regardless of the time of day, but also, we didn’t worry about finding our motel before dark. We really liked the idea that the nuvi is portable and we could carry it easily in Boston when walking downtown. My friends had barely heard of Garmin before we left and two more sales were made by our return.

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