Slightly Off Center

My satnav tried to drown us Sunday.

It's a Garmin we bought to help us get to art shows, and it's usually pretty reliable, except it has a tendency to want to take us on ferry rides. Tries to put us on the Whidbey Island ferry when going to Anacortes, for example, even though there's a perfectly good bridge on the north end of the island. And more than once, it's directed me to tiny Willamette River ferries, even if they only run one day a week; it seems to have a fascination with boats.

This, however, was a little bit beyond all that.

We'd brought it back with us this time because the last rental car, in May, had Navigator screen, but no software installed, and following Google Maps on my phone is a pain because I can't look at the screen while driving, and it's frequently about half a turn short on its instructions. Not to mention the fact that it defaulted to bike paths the last time we were in Minneapolis, and took us on an interestingly circuitous route from the airport to my sister's place at 10 pm. And of course cell service is terrible in rural Wisconsin, so the map can go away just when you need it the most.

So, Sunday morning, we checked out of the motel in Neillsville, had a leisurely breakfast with my brother and sister-in-law, then headed out for the highway. Lovely fall day, maples just starting to turn, puffy white clouds. Beautiful, and we made good time.

Perhaps a little too good. Realized we'd hit Minneapolis around 2:30, and the folks we were overnighting with wouldn't be home 'til supper, so we needed to fill some time.

If we'd been on state roads, it would've been easy to find an orchard or farmstand or just a picturesque town to poke around in. The Interstate, however, is designed to avoid pesky distractions like that. I know, I said, somewhere northwest of Eau Claire, Let's stop at Como Park in St. Paul. They've got a zoo and a conservatory and it's not too big, or usually too crowded. So we looked up Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in the Places of Interest tab, programmed the Navigator, and hit the road.

We got to St. Paul in good time, wound through the streets toward our destination, then, with a .3 miles to go, dead-ended in a T-intersection, right at Como Lake.

I took a right turn, looped around the lake and tried again. As I came back around, it started saying "Go Off Road" and indicating a left turn. Right into the water, which would have disturbed the couples out in swan boats considerably.

I found a parking space, dumped the program and got out my phone, which took us back around the other side, where we found the Conservatory and Zoo, admired the water lilies, and and Denise rested her knees on a bench by the flamingo pond while I walked around with my sketchbook.

Figured it out later--because we selected the place, but not the address, it was trying to place us in the center of the park. Drowning us was just an unexpected bonus.

Of course, on the way back to Maggie's, it tried twice to get us to take sections of 35W that were closed for construction, so I should probably download a map update as well.