A few months ago the significant other and I decided to take a road trip. We had spent far too many nights in a row snuggled on the couch watching “Boardwalk Empire” (Seriously, Nucky is the WORST, right?) and far too many days apart from each other working. So, we planned out a nice three-day weekend together. I had used Google Maps to plan a trip from Nashville to the Columbus Zoo where we would spend a few hours and then drive to see a concert that started late that night in Indianapolis. We would get a hotel and then drive back the next day.
Our trip was supposed to look something like this:
The, things went terribly, TERRIBLY, wrong.
The day of the trip, we got in the car, far earlier than either of us are used to getting up in the mornings. I plugged in my Lumia and used the Here Drive+ GPS that comes with the OS and types in the address. In retrospect I should have double checked what the Lumia was telling me right then, but I didn’t.
According to the itinerary that was mapped out by the Google maps route two days earlier, we were to arrive at the zoo by 2 pm. That is not what happened. Halfway through the drive, while driving through Cincinnati, I remembered thinking to myself, “something isn’t right.” I looked at my boyfriend who was cycling through my mint green 3rd gen iPod, for something to listen to while his android was charging. “Why is the GPS saying we won’t arrive until after 5? I swear google said we would get there at like 2 when I mapped it yesterday.”
He tried to reassure me but I really hate being late. I had mapped everything out for a reason. Right? The GPS was supposed to take us the fastest way possible.
We didn’t arrive until a little after 5pm. I chalked it up to bad traffic and other anomalies. We ended up only spending an hour and half at the zoo before leaving at 7 to go to the show in Indianapolis.
However, by the time we ended up there, we had missed everything because once again, what google maps had showed me and what my Lumia had given me for directions were vastly different.
WHAT WAS GOING ON? C’mon Lumia, I thought we were buds. I talked you up to all my friends. Even when they said you weren’t good enough for me, I said they were wrong, and you let me down like this?
Pissed off and missing our favorite band and not spending nearly enough time with tiny and large animals, the boyfriend and I headed home. we spent the next four hours in my tiny two door Yaris, sad and disheartened. We got home at 4 am having spent 15 hours in a car together. But we didn’t kill each other and we are still together so there is that victory.
But wait, there is more.
A month later, we planned a make-up trip, this time to just Bloomington, Indiana, with no other stops, to see the same band playing. According to Google maps, from Nashville to the address of the venue, it only takes about 4 hours, as you can see below.
According to the Lumia, if you try the fastest route it takes a whopping 6 and a half hours, adding on TWO HOURS and a HUNDRED MILES. If you try the shortest route, it adds on FIVE EXTRA HOURS to your trip. See proof below.
Thank the old gods and new that I checked this before we left the house this time or we might have missed yet another event thanks to the Lumia.
Then, I had a realization. During our last trip, I wonder just how much the Lumia’s GPS had affected the trip and ruined our drive.
So, thanks Lumia. You might remember, I wrote an article about how much I loved the Lumia earlier this year. Well, guess what? Our love affair is over. we did not survive those 15 hours in the car together. You’ll be moving out as soon as you can find a new home because all the trust is gone, until then let’s just try not to fuck anything else up, okay?
