Turner Family: When GPS Goes Wrong (aka The Holiday Inn Hunting Lodge)

As many of you with GPS capable cellphones know, you cannot always rely on the device to be accurate 100% of the time. On our recent trip to Alabama during the long Memorial Day weekend Jamie did not bring an atlas, as in times past. No, he had his beloved Crackberry, I mean Blackberry, which is GPS compatible.

After almost fourteen gruelingly long hours on the road, he punched in the address of our hotel, the wonderful Holiday Inn Express, and viola! Instant directions. We made the decent off the freeway onto one of the many Alabama State Highways, drove for another hour, in pouring sheets of rain. Stopping to gas up because the van was screaming "Empty! Empty!" Turned around, turned left, then right, then left again, down and around old country roads, all the while following trusty Crackberry GPS navigation system.

I was beginning to wonder if Jamie had misinterpreted the directions, after all he had been driving for fourteen-plus hours by this time. Taking the phone from him, I saw exactly what he was seeing . . . the red arrow pointing to our intended destination with the little blue dot representing us. According to the GPS, we were on top of our hotel.

We stopped to look around. To the left of us was a large forest of tall shady pines. To the right, a meadow with a clapboard barn. Could this truly be our hotel? Jamie dubbed it the Holiday Inn Hunting Lodge. With a quick phone call to the Holiday Inn Express, we realized the road we were on was, in fact, the correctly named road, only in a different city. Yeah, Alabama.

We turned around, found Interstate Hwy. 85 and drove to the Holiday Inn Express. Like a beacon in the night, we had arrived and none too soon with tempers beginning to flare (i.e., mine) and exhaustion setting in (i.e. Jamie). Rounding out our day with a home cooked meal from Jamie's Aunts and a nice visit with family later that evening.

I had to take pictures documenting this burp in the vortex of technology. Beware of your GPS, you may find yourself in the deep, dark woods lost in Alabama!