I have a fun story for y’all.
I was a 90s kid who grew up in the Los Angeles area. (I still live there.) Back in those days, we mere mortals didn’t have GPS. If we Angelinos wanted to find our way around, we relied on the good old Thomas Guide.
I didn’t drive back then, because I was a snot-nosed kid who could barely clear the “you need to be this tall to ride” sign at Disneyland. But my brother and I were entrusted with navigating for our mom. Both of us got really fucking good at it.
My extreme confidence navigating L.A.’s insane road network comes down to that childhood experience. GPS is great—even I rely on it from time to time. But if I had grown up with that, I don’t think I would’ve learned the roads as well as I did. There’s something about a paper map that today’s tech can’t quite replicate.
Adam Savage apparently agrees with me. He made a whole video where he waxed nostalgic about the Thomas Guide. It’s definitely worth a watch!
@digichelle We must be close in age. I had to use the giant road atlas to navigate my mother around endless construction detours in Beloit on long haul road trips when I was little. Early digital mapping like MapQuest was just becoming a thing when I started driving. But you still had to print everything off before a trip or jot down the directions.
That feels like a very different time. Oof.
Digichelle
Erikreadonly
Ryan Welsh