GPS FTW

As part of my commitment to a happy marriage, I took scuba lessons.  If you know my wife, that completely makes sense to you.  The lessons consisted of two weekends' worth of time allotment.  The first weekend was classroom work (horrible high school flashbacks) and pool work ("we're going to swim horizontally while pretending that we're swimming vertically").  That was the easy bit.  I passed that portion without any problems.  I'm still upset that I got that one wrong on the final test.  Regardless.  The second weekend consisted of what's referred to has "open water dives."  In other words, you're not in the controlled environment of the pool anymore, Toto.

We met early on Saturday morning and divided the group in to the various cars that would be traveling four hours to a quarry.  The quarry used to be a working rock quarry until they dug deep enough to hit a spring and fill the hole up with water.  They then stocked it with fish, sunk some interesting things to look at, and began charging such crazy, extortion-level prices for people (mostly scuba students) to make use of it that the Russian mafia was overheard to have said "that's a steep price."  The trip started mostly uneventful.  Those of us in the minivan were getting to know one another and enjoying scanning the radio for music we enjoyed.  There were five vehicles in the convoy all total.  For those who are wondering, of course I quoted some C.W. McCall as we pulled out of the parking lot.

Later on in the trip, things got a bit more fragmented.  One car missed where the interstate split and were on their own.  Traffic separated the lead van with the other three.  I called the lead van to make sure which route they were taking.  We were only a few miles behind them, but didn't see them again until reaching the quarry.  How does this relate to the Incredible?  With everyone separating, I decided to put the phone to a real-world test.  Battery life to the wind, I turned on the GPS.  It took me a little bit to find the address of the place we were going (Maps was a bit fickle about using the abbreviation for road instead of spelling it out), but soon I had the route planned out before us.

It was a bit more of a scenic route than I initially expected as it took us through the heart of a small town instead of staying on a road that eventually met back up with the road we were on, but the important bit is that it got us there.  I found that when the miles remaining to turn is in the double-digits, it decrements when it reaches four tenths of a mile remaining (e.g. 10.4 appeared as 10), but other than that, it was a perfectly good turn-by-turn direction system.  It fulfilled its purpose of getting us to the quarry and subsequently home.  Isn't that all you want out of a GPS system?

Over the two days we were there, I survived the sub-60 degree water and successfully didn't drown.  I passed the open water portion of the scuba classes and am now a certified open water diver.  The GPS passed a test that makes me feel better about not bringing my mom's Tom-Tom with when we make our anniversary trip, but I still need to get a car charger for the phone before that happens (stupid battery life).