I miss having a map.  You can hardly find them anymore. If you don’t find a visitor center when you enter a state you’re out of luck.  I remember the day when every filling station had maps.  Free for the taking.  Probably paid for with taxes from the state you were in.

I like seeing the “whole” thing all at once when I am on the road.  All the little towns and cattle gates along the way.  Now I have to ask my phone where I am and how far it is to where I am going.  The visual is only as wide as my phone.  You can shrink it and get more of it--but never what all I want to see.  I want to see the entire state with all its bumps, humps and indentations.  Kind of like God sees things.

I used to have maps of every state from the East coast to the West.  The southern USA.  I never made it to North Dakota--who would want to go there anyway, unless you lived there.  Kinda like Oklahoma.  But I threw my maps away.  Big mistake.

I grew up with maps.  I can remember my daddy stopping the car to read a map--trying to decide which way to go.  (My mom was never much a navigator.)  Four lane roads hadn’t been invented.  Half the roads were dirt--even though they were on the map.  Paved roads were colored.  There were cross hatches, dotted lines and a zillion other symbols for every other kind of road surface or place.  Railroads, ferrys, and such. 

North to South roads were odd numbers, East to West were even numbers.  Towns were sized by color and rings.  The state capitols were marked with a star. All the information you could ever want was on a map.  Visible to see--all at once. 

Siri doesn’t tell you about the draw bridge up ahead--or how long you are going to have to wait until the boat, ship, dingy, tug, barge, sloop, trawler, yacht  is going to take to get through.  All of which have the right of way.  Give me a map.  The more fold-outs the better.  I want to see where I’m going.  I want to see where I’ve been.  Both coming and going all at once. Ahead and behind, and everything in between.