Technology allows for family fun

You are going to question my sanity after you read this.

 

In order to allow my granddaughter to visit with some of her cousins, and also to visit “Fright Fest,” a spooky celebration at the Six Flags Great America theme park in Gurnee, Illinois, I drove from Grand Marais, Minnesota, where she lives, to the northern edge of the Chicago urban area. For two days we had an orgy of fun riding roller coasters, seeing shows, and taking part in other entertainment.

 

Then I drove back to Grand Marais. The distance, one way, is about 550 miles: eight hours of driving, plus stops for meals and stretches.

 

I suppose it’s possible I might have been willing to make the drive back in a time before GPS navigation, but I was a whole lot more confident about it thanks to modern electronic support.

 

My “phone”--I put the word in quotes because it’s a word whose meaning has expanded a thousandfold over the past 15 to 20 years–made the drive smoother, faster, and more inviting than it would have been in times past.

 

First, and most obviously, it supplied navigation. Not only did it show the route I should take to get from starting point to destination, it estimated with impressive accuracy how long it would take me to get there. Had I needed it, it would have suggested alternate routes made more appealing because of traffic or construction.  

 

It was able to tell me whether there was a particular restaurant in the town I happened to be approaching at about lunchtime.

 

It willingly created a new route if some circumstance changed–for example, if I wanted to add a “stop.”

 

Perhaps best of all, if I failed to follow the provided instructions for one reason or another, it calmly adjusted and continued supplying guidance to get me to my destination.

 

As important as all those elements are, they were only the fundamental beginning.

 

My phone supplied distraction and entertainment on the drive. I have an app which allows me to listen to “books on tape.” Let me just say, it really helps pass the time on a long drive. Along with that, because I’m a nerd who listens to “that sort” of book, it offered tremendous food for thought. If you’ve never read “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis, you might consider doing so.  In addition to addressing fundamental elements of Christian faith, it broadens one’s perspective on a remarkable number of everyday matters as well.

 

When the driving was a bit more tense and so did not allow me to pay attention to the book, it also lightened the mood by supplying other distractions–perhaps most noticeably, music. My granddaughter and I had a music exchange, in which we took turns choosing a song we like, playing it for the other, and then saying why we selected it. I was pleased to learn that, along with some of the noisier types of music not suited to my ears, she is fond of instrumental numbers and show tunes as well.

 

Then there was the app for the amusement park. It revealed when the park opened and closed each day; it laid out what shows were available at what locations and at what times. When some of my nieces and nephews decided to join us at the park, I was able to send a “pin” providing our location. Though I have never had much luck following “pins,” it apparently worked very well for my nephew; he and his children arrived just in time to join us for a show.

 

And along with all that, electronic connectivity provided “phone” service as never would have been dreamt of in the past.

 

While I was coming from Grand Marais and my son and his family from home territory near Waseca, we were nonetheless able to coordinate our arrival at a stop partway along the route to have a late lunch with family members. As I drove toward Mac’s Pizza Joint in Janesville, Wisconsin, fully informed as to where the other car was and when it would be arriving at the lunch, I thought to myself of long drives taken in the past when the only information available to each party was the other’s intended departure and arrival times, with pretty much every other element of the drive made on faith alone.

 

I made and received phone calls, most of which related to the trip and our weekend activities, and some having to do with my work with the newspaper. I spoke with people who were literally hundreds of miles away while they had no reason to believe I was anywhere other than on home territory.

 

While it had little to do with my phone, I was also able to connect my computer to WiFi and submit pieces I had written as though I had been working in my home office. I used email to make and confirm some future appointments.

 

Mostly, I spent my long weekend enjoying the company of family and friends while also enjoying the excitement of thrill rides and frightening actors. But the conveniences of technology pushed their way into my consciousness often. I was grateful for the many ways connectivity made my weekend simpler and easier.

 

As a child of the twentieth, rather than twenty-first, century I was astounded at how far human ingenuity has brought us.