Navigation System, go fuck yourself

There's no denying that i am in love with my car's navigation system. I have invested over $2000 to fix it twice over the last 4 years. I leave it on all the time, looking at it even when i am making a drive i am very familiar with. first of all, i love maps, and second of all, there is something comforting in the knowledge that my car knows where i am and where i am going at all times. but recently my faith got shook twice on a long solo road trip. the first incident happened up at 9000 feet above sea level in the mountains of Wyoming. I was going over one of the highest passes that interstate 80 takes on it's long journey over and across the continental divide. It was dark and I had about a half tank of gas. but even with that limited fuel, I knew that i could most likely make it to Laramie, a supposedly large town (large by Wyoming standards, which probably meant that there was a bunch of fast food spots and a hotel). what i wasn't sure of, was what exit it would be or if i had to use a secondary road. So i had to depend on my navi and wait for the car to get close enough to see the turns on my 8" by 8" screen.

I started to notice wisps of clouds floating across the road. at first the smoky little puffs resembled the ghosts of large animals like elephants and woolly mammoths floating slowly across the pavement. they were kind of interesting to me and they broke up the monotonous look of the winding yellow and white lines of the pitch black road ahead. I was blasting through them in the same way that you blast through those steam leaks coming up through manholes in the city. they are solid looking until your car blasts through them without any resistance. but to my alarm, these puffy clouds quickly multiplied in frequency, becoming at first a herd of them, and then before i knew it, i was in fog so think that i literally couldn't see more then 10-20 feet ahead of me. i turned on my fog lights, which helped a bit. then it got worse forcing me to turn off my regular headlights because the white splotch the light made in front of my car was almost blinding.

there was one truck that flew by me at about 40 miles an hour. by that point i had slowed to probably 30 mph so as to not fly off the bending road. i had no idea how far of a drop off on either side was, or even if there was a shoulder at all. i tried to chase the truck's red tail lights for a bit, but to see them i had to literally be within 20 feet of them. i'm not one for extreme tailgating in the dark on a lonely mountain pass, so eventually the tail lights got ahead of me and quickly faded into the thick haze.

It was at this nerve racking moment that i looked to my navi monitor for comfort. to my chagrin the fucker had frozen up and gone blank. it's done that once before. It was when i was going to an important party for my grandmother in some god-forsaken part of long island with my sister and both of our girlfriends in the car. of course, that incident didn't leave me and my passengers in a possible life or death situation. unless you find getting lost in Long Island akin to dying. it was only annoying because i had to then call my grandmother for directions after so pompously refusing them...plus i hadn't actually needed the Navi for months since i always knew where i was going. this new and ill-times malfunction had to be the god awfullest worst timing imaginable. to fix it i would have to pull over and restart the car. only i had no idea if there was even a shoulder to pull over on. i couldn't even see signs that were probably just a few feet away. i didn't know if there was an exit or not, if i had missed mine, or even if i was on the right road. even if i had seen an exit, getting off would have been perilous because it would be impossible to see how to get back on or where to go from there. i might end up following a dotted line to nowhere.

so, despite the butterflies in my stomach. despite the sense that i could be in really serious danger if i took a wrong turn or tried to stop on the freeway. i just gripped the wheel and stayed determined to follow what i was pretty sure was still I80 all the way until it started going downhill again. I turned on some Jazz music because that was the best way i could still feel like things were ok, like i was still in the middle of civilization. I was going to have to do this the old fashioned way (old fashioned like 1995). I figured if a bunch of illiterate frontier men could do it by donkey wrapped in dried pelts, then i could manage it in my 740il BMW. but i was both vexed by my usually reliable satellite link cutting me off, and kind of nervous about how to get back to civilization before my gas ran out.

thankfully, about an hour of this crazy soup driving later, i noticed that i needed to brake a lot to keep under 40mph. This was an indication that i finally was descending the backside of the pass. if you can't see any horizon, you lose the ability to judge uphill and downhill except by the way the car speeds up or slows down. 30 minutes after realizing that i must be going downhill i started to notice a red color in the haze. and then all of a sudden, like a sheet being pulled back from my eyes, the fog cleared and i was looking out over a vast valley filled with city lights. I pulled over and restarted the car and the navigation told me i had "arrived". thanks bitch.

the second adventure was even crazier then that one. I was driving down to LA from San Francisco, after spending three days haunting my old city, hanging out with friends whom i didn't realize how much i missed until i saw them. it's amazing how you can become part of a community and then disappear for a year and a half, and then come back to people who greet you like you never left. it's actually a great feeling. i know i have a home there if i should want it back (which i often consider).

anyways, I took the scenic route as i do whenever i am on an official "road trip", but i have learned that that ride can be 10 hours if you do the 1 the whole way. so what i do to compromise, is to drive west on Geary street in San Fran all the way to the beach. get out, walk to the water, say hello to the pacific since it's the first time i've seen it in a while, and then drive south on the 1. it's a gorgeous and intense ride all the way down through the big sur. but really, once you pass the big sur, you might as well head inland and jump on the 5 and shave 3 hours off the second leg of the trip. i decided to let my know-it-all navi find me a route to the 5 from the 1. it came up with one pretty quickly, as a matter of fact it popped up and said to turn in 800 feet. i slowed down quickly and turned onto a small, almost hidden road with a cow barrier. i didn't see any signs and it looked well paved and used. i also had my map set to 25 miles per inch, which sometimes gives a winding road the appearance of a straight road since it doesn't have the resolution to render all the little bends in the road. so in essence, the road looked like a straight shot on my digital map. i also noted that i should have plenty of gas based on the distance to the 5 and what my car said my range was.

What followed the most intense road i have ever travelled. this insane experience didn't happen because my Navi malfunctioned. this one happened because it WORKED. It knew of a road that it really shouldn't have. actually, NOBODY should know about this road. it should NOT be on any map for any reason. well, apparently, as my girl's military brother says "assumption is the mother of all fuck ups". he also says things like "whats wrong with your S.A. (situational awareness)?!" these are both phrases that i should have considered during the split second decision to follow this road. my S.A. was highly FUBAR as i was making several ill informed assumptions.

The road soon started to ascend up into the mountains. I expected this because there's no other way to the central plains then through the mountains. so I was happy to have found a mountain road fully stocked with hairpin turns and awesome views. it was pure driving pleasure, and there was nobody around to spoil my nature experience. the sky was blue with an occasional fluffy cloud and the vegetation was surprisingly thick and green for the end of the summer. my guess was that the mountains were so steep and rugged that the weather pattern was perhaps wetter then other less extreme parts of the coast. there were brilliant purple and yellow mountain flowers and hawks flying over them, hunting for field mice and other small mammals. i was blasting America and Bread to add to the mountain-america drive.

Slowly the road got higher and higher up, to the point where i could see over the edge of the road down thousands of feet to the sea. plus the road was getting narrower and narrower. my wide car was basically just holding the outer edges, and sharp turns became VERY sharp. it got exhausting. an hour of this driving passed and i realized that i was still pretty much at the beginning of the road. i zoomed in and realized that the road was more like the pattern of the brain, or a complex maze you might find in a cognitive exercise book. i realized that my sense of distance had been entirely mislead. i also realized that i couldn't even turn around on the road due to the fact that it was one lane, and there was no shoulder and a sheer drop-off. that's when my situation started to sink in. my gas might not actually do the trick. and i was too far in to consider anything besides continuing along the way. plus, I hadn't seen ANYBODY ELSE ON THE ROAD.

A bit later, after countless blind hairpin turns and steep inclines, the road started to level off and descend again. trees started to appear on the side and i could see that it became a bit less curvy, but it also entered a thick forest. so now i am throwing the car into neutral and coasting as much as i could to try and save gas. the trees were redwoods and eucalyptus. my favorites. the fragrance in the air was pristine and i knew i was in bear/lion country. as soon as i thought that, i came around a turn and stopped short. there were 5 guys, armed to their teeth, wearing paramilitary like outfits standing in the middle of the road. i looked at them...they looked at me. there was a nice long moment. my black BMW with Manhattan plates, their high powered assault rifles and side arms and camouflage. one of them said something to the others and they slowly, reluctantly, cleared a path. I rolled past them and just said "thank you gentlemen"...no response. i watched them carefully in the rear view, getting ready to floor it if they should start taking their rifles off the shoulder straps. this wasn't Kansas, Toto.

So with that surreal moment fresh on my mind. the growing awareness that i could be heading headlong into some para-military training camp or worse, i continued on. the forest got thicker and thicker, the turns got more and more frequent, and the sun became more and more dappled. my sense of imminent disaster was growing and growing with each turn. then, around one of these turns, i was suddenly face to face with 4 motorcycles and their riders. these guys were taking a break in a glade and i was CLEARLY not expected or invited. but they weren't BLOCKING the road, so i nodded and just kept on driving past that scene.

A few more miles and i was starting to check my phone to see if i had any signal in case i needed to call somebody and explain that i was going to die in the mountains of central California. i realized that i could have at least given my coordinates thanks to the same fucking Navi that got me into the situation in the first place. no signal though. i was fucked.

Then I came around another turn and had to stop short facing a military road block. there was a toll booth and a sign saying that i was approaching a military base. Since i was just relieved to see Americans whom i might be on the same side as, i rolled up and stopped to let them approach.

The heavily armed guy who came up to me looked very surprised at my appearance. He asked me what i was doing there and i just pointed at my Navi. "I wanted to get to the 5 and this stupid thing told me to take this road. I just want to get to LA."

He seemed to relax and told me that i had taken a military road and that it goes through a certain fort on its way to the 5. he also said that he could let me through but needed my IDs and registration. I happily gave them up since it meant i wouldn't have to go back and run out of gas on that crazy road. He checked my info and wrote some stuff down and then gave them back to me. he then told me that i couldn't use my cell phone or take any pictures...and that for no reason should I stray whatsoever off the road. I nodded my agreement and said i was sure to just go right through. He also mentioned that there was a single gas station in 30 miles. i had about 80 miles left of gas. PHEWWWWW. i was safe.

At least i thought i was safe. that road, my friends, was not exactly the safest place to be. and i quickly learned why i wouldn't want to stray. there were tanks all over the place, they were practicing maneuvers and blowing shit up on the sides of hills. and there i was, the most lost guy in the state of California, equipped with satellite GPS. in the middle of a military base...an active military base. i don't think i can get specific about this, as i think it's kind of a secretive thing. but i can just say that what i saw, what i drove through was FAR from what i had expected when i set out that morning with a chocolate milk and croissant in hand.

Needless to say, I made it through. I got gas. I got to the 5. Navi, go FUCK yourself.