The last time I was in Los Angeles was in August 2021. Was the pandemic still going on then? I don't remember. Anyway, I had gone to see a museum exhibit on stained glass, and to get there I had plotted out a route that would get me all the way to Los Angeles from San Antonio with only two hours of freeway driving, the unavoidable passage through the West Texas wasteland from Sonora to Fort Stockton.
Well. If you've read the blog posts from that trip, you may remember that, while it was a good trip overall, certain things prevented me from taking my intended route; three things, in particular. (You probably didn't read them, and if you did you probably don't remember. That's OK; I really only write for myself.) First, I had no cell service in the area west of San Antonio, so I couldn't access the route-plan on my phone; and I had also neglected to bring along paper maps. I couldn't remember the route I'd laid out several weeks before, so ended up getting to the freeway in Junction, Texas -- normally a two-hour trip from San Antonio -- in just about four hours. And that was just the first hurdle.
Second, the roof-raising mechanism on my convertible broke in the middle of nowhere, at that time located in west-central New Mexico, near the Arizona state line. That eventuality meant I had to abandon the middle portion of my planned route, and instead go into Phoenix for repairs...which proved to be unavailable. But the shop there at least got the back windows up and deactivated them. So the top stayed up from that point on, until I got the repairs done after returning home. (It's just now, as I'm writing this, that it occurs to me: would the top have gone down without the back windows going down first? I don't know; I never tried.) Anyway, having the top up for the entire trip kind of negated the whole point of having a de luxe touring convertible.
Third, Google Maps stopped talking to me. I had not realized this until I found myself on a freeway entrance somewhere in Los Angeles County. That was when I realized I wasn't on the route I'd so carefully planned out. Now, I have had many issues with Google Maps, despite it still being (far as I can see) the best navigational aid available. It used to tell me the names of streets to turn on, and the names and numbers of freeway exits. Then it lapsed unbidden into Brit-speak, and would say things like "take the slip-road on the left." Then it stopped speaking altogether, as during my last trip to LA.
We're on speaking terms again, Google Maps and I, but it's of a strained and limited variety: now it'll just say, "In two miles, take the interchange on the right." Usually that's adequate, but when, as occasionally happens, there are two possible turning points in very close proximity, I never know which to take. It has never worked out well. At the worst point, it not only stopped speaking altogether, it stopped moving the map to show my position. Ask me about Dayton. Thank goodness that didn't last long! (I noticed that, when we were using my sister in law's version of Google Maps in North Carolina last month, street names abounded.)
In the case of the Stained Glass Trip, I ended up trying to wing it; I got off the accidental freeway, selected a destination that I knew was along the intended route, and asked for directions. It gave me what I wanted, but it wouldn't say anything. I would have to look at the phone to see if I was going the right way. If I missed a turn, I got a little electronic noise, but as someone who wears trifocals, I can't actually see my phone in the car unless I hold it in front of my face. You will agree that this is not the best way to drive, especiallly in an unfamiliar area.
Since that trip, I've figured out that if the phone is connected to the car radio by bluetooth, Google Maps won't say anything unless the radio is on. As long as I remember to turn it on, I should get some instructions from the program, even if I still don't get the names of streets. I've also made sure to have a paper map in the car this time, and I've highlighted the route through the Hill Country. I've also laid out the route on Google Maps on my computer and sent it to my phone. Twice. I hope at least one of these things works. Because I'm leaving again for Los Angeles soon, and I'm going to try basically the same route, with a few changes: adding a waterfall in New Mexico, dropping a couple of places in New Mexico and Arizona that, I've since learned, are just fire watchtowers in the national forests. (From their descriptions on RoadTrippers, they sounded like scenic viewpoints.) And since I left off the places along the old route that I actually went to on that trip, I could change the route enough to (a) stop over in Havasu, where we have a house I can stay in, and (2) add a whole bunch of potential places I probably won't go to and a few I probably will (like the out-of-tune singing road in Lancaster, California).
So fingers crossed! Will the car function within acceptable parameters? Will the weather cooperate? Will any of the sites I've picked out on my route prove at all worth seeing? Will I be attacked by a bear, or a mountain lion, or a MAGA Republican?
I'm meeting my friend the Hankmeister in LA; he flies in on the Thursday after I leave for LA, so I have six days to get from here to there. Since San Antonio-to-Los Angeles is normally a long two-day trip or an easy three-day trip, I have the luxury of no real constraints on my wandering. (I suspect this is proving a little irritating to my sister-in-law, who has to deal with the caretaker of the house in Havasu; but she's being flexible.) That is the best way to wander, the way I always try to plan, but seldom actually get to do. May this time be different!
When the Hankmeister flies home on Sunday, I'll go back to Havasu that night. At least, that's the plan. It's a 5-hour drive and he doesn't have to be at the airport until about 4:30 in the afternoon, so I may be driving late into the night. I don't like that thought, but one does what one must.
