PanningForGold

If you haven’t read part one, I’d suggest you do.

So we did our research, which meant going to the store, asking a few questions and making our purchase.  We decided on a Garmin.  A decision I will never regret.  I’ve been to Harrisburg a few times and I always get confused because as you reach the outskirts everything tends to bottle neck and if you are not on the correct side of the highway who knows where you will end up.  Garmi takes all the stress out of the ride, Garmi tells you what side of the road to be on.  Garmi is brilliant.  When I started training at work I had to travel to Philadelphia.  Garmi got me there and back without any glitches, without any of my usual find a new place stress. I’ve learned a few times, Always trust Garmi!  The first time I was in the warehouse van just pulling out of the Huntingdon office which is about an hour away.  The most direct route home entails pulling out of the office crossing a double yellow line and making a left hand turn.  Before making my illegal move I checked my side mirror, and there standing outside the door talking to a technician was our safety officer.  My choices were two-fold, make the illegal turn and know where I was going and suffer the consequences of the illegal turn when I got back to the office or take a chance and turn right and be pointing in a direction I had never been.  Really wanting to avoid conflict I decided to go on a little adventure.  I didn’t cross the double yellow.  Garmi who was set to Halloween mode started giving me directions in his haunted vampiric  voice. “In two hundred feet turn right” I made the turn like a good little follower and it took me up a little hill at which point Garmi said “In fifty feet turn left”…”Turn Left now” The problem was turning left meant turning into somebody’s driveway.  I continued to go straight, Garmi objected, seeing as I have Garmi set to no u-turns it resorted to “Let me consult my magic book” which in Halloween mode means re-calculating.  Much to my horror it repeated itself “Let me consult my magic book” I kept going straight and Garmi repeated himself again.  Was Garmi lost?  Eventually Garmi said, “Continue on route” I was getting a little nervous.  There was no sign of human life.  I was surrounded by woods and while I was not on a dirt road, the road was so narrow the branches were scrapping along each side of the van. My only consolation of being lost was at least I was lost in an absolutely beautiful spot on a magnificent fall day.   If you have never been to central Pa you should really make an effort to come down in the fall the scenery is simply majestic.

I always play a little game that may one day get me a speeding ticket.  When I leave to go somewhere I always check Garmi to see when I’m supposed to arrive at my destination, and then I try to beat that time.  When I started the journey Garmi said I would arrive at my destination at 2:45 now, even lost Garmi told me I was going to arrive at 2:41, score!  Although I was pretty sure that in a few years time somebody was going to find a rusted out Comcast van with my skeletal remains hunkered down in the driver’s seat with Garmi saying, “Let me consult my magic book”! I continued to drive.

Finally Garmi told me to make a left and suddenly I was back in civilization.  I was still lost, but now there were other cars on the road so I figured I must be headed somewhere, chances of us all being lost was pretty slim.  A mile or two later I absolutely knew where I was (Pine Grove Mills)  I actually knew somebody who lived in the area.  I had no idea geographically where Pine Grove Mills was in relation to State College and Huntingdon in fact knowing I was in Pine Grove Mills was no help whatsoever because I was still lost, but Garmi wasn’t and I had found my faith in Garmi.

When I got back to the office, (ahead of time I might add) I was telling the story to my co-worker.  He informed me that I should have made that first turn onto the ‘driveway’ because it just looked like a driveway.  The reality was that once you got to the house the ‘road’ was leading too there was a slight drop not visible from the beginning of the road and from there it made a sharp turn which would have put me on the correct side of the double yellow and it would have been an easy drive home.

 Always Trust Garmi!