What kind of map reader are you?

So, what kind of “map reader” are you? Do you like to see the big picture or is it enough to focus on just where you are at the moment?

I traveled a great deal this spring and it was interesting to think about reading maps along the way…. I had two trips; one was a trip with my students to Ohio and the other was a trip with my dad from Kansas to Wisconsin. For both trips, we navigated with a real highway map….(no GPS for us!)

For the student trip, we had to drive to Columbus, Ohio and I was in a van with 6 other people. Two of us were the designated drivers for the nine – hour trip. Jenn, my co-pilot sat up front and kept up lively conversation to keep me awake and alert. (Not too soon after taking off the van fell into a quiet hush as the 5 other people fell asleep!) I had printed out an 8 ½ x 11” page of directions from Google and we also had maps of Illinois and Indiana… As we proceeded on the trip, Jenn got out the maps and unfolded them for easier viewing… What was interesting is that she unfolded them to see a wide view of about ½ the state at a time…. rather than focusing on the little 4 x 6” of map we needed to see…(Google map size). The reason I thought this was interesting is because I too like to see the big picture of where I am going and where I am related to the area around me. I have always been directionally challenged (California is on the East Coast right???) (My daughter Theresa also shares this unfortunate trait with me, but that is another story…) For me, I have to have practically the entire map open to “see” where I am…. While the trip was pretty straight forward, it was fun to get there the “old-fashioned way”. Jenn said she collects maps, so at the gas station in Ohio I bought her a map to add to her collection!

A few weeks later I had the chance to travel with my dad back from Arizona and I was the official map reader….(yes I realized we needed to head East to get home ;-) We did get lost within the first 20 miles on our first day (missed a sign for a turn onto the highway – easy to do amongst construction and the fact that all the roads looked alike! Believe me it is not like the interstate system here in WI!) Once we realized we were on the wrong road (Hmmmm why haven’t we seen any other semis on the road for a while?!!?) we had to turn around (the 37 foot motor home plus the car) on a two lane farm road. According to the map, we could take a short cut to get back onto the highway – if the map was right… and we hoped the short cut was not another farm road! As we proceeded to head back to get onto the right road, dad asked me how far the shortcut was… being funny I said “oh about ½” inch” ha ha… the joke was, for the rest of the trip if he asked me how far we had to go I gave him the distance in inches….

At a rest stop in Kansas, I thought of Jenn and grabbed a map for her – just in case she didn’t have one for Kansas!

So, what kind of “map reader” are you? Do you like to see the big picture or is it enough to focus on just where you are at the moment? Or do you depend on your technology to get you where you need to go? But the most important question of all is…. Do you know how to refold that map???#@#!?