Lost Weekend.(adventures in navigation)(Column)

Byline: Kevin A. Wilson

Like many proud drivers, I've never seen why a navigation system is regarded as an admirable feature with which to complicate my dashboard. Though sometimes temporarily unable to tell you exactly where we are, I'm never lost. I've found my way home by orienting myself to the sun, stars or moon, and even a hotel in a strange city is never farther away than the adventure of a fumbling conversation in an unknown tongue. My car is often the first to venture off the beaten path in search of a way around a traffic jam or construction zone, while more patient (?) souls sit on an all-but-closed freeway because they don't know any other route. I'd rather risk wandering for half an hour trying to find my way than to sit there fuming for 20 minutes. Give me a compass and I'm eager; a road atlas or map would be a bonus, and worth every bit of $4.95. But two grand?

So it's sometimes embarrassing to find that, while I can always find my way, I'm not always as good at combining that skill with my verbal ones. That is, I can get from here to there and back by any of three different routes, but you'd rather follow me than rely on my written or spoken directions. I once "navigated'' three round trips of the ring road around Marseilles, France, before the driver stopped listening to me and found the right ramp to take to go north.

This sometimes even leaks into print. Most recently, in this space, I advised you to venture east from Watkins Glen, New York, in search of the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport. Heading east from The Glen by the distance of one Finger Lake will take you to Ithaca, home of Cornell University, which is an interesting place.

It might help those of us facing this communications challenge if our national highway numbering system always made sense. Take Labor Day weekend. Mrs. Wilson and I were wandering with no particular destination or schedule, and wound up in one of my favorite places for ...