{"id":31485,"date":"2018-08-03T00:28:54","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T00:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=31485"},"modified":"2018-08-03T00:31:33","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T00:31:33","slug":"happy-trails-part-117-learning-how-to-get-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=31485","title":{"rendered":"Happy Trails, Part 117: Technology comes in handy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Now that I am a 21st-century man — more or less — I can report that we are relying on state-of-the-art navigational technology to help us get from place to place in our new community.<\/p>\n

We live in Fairview, Texas — which is tucked between Allen and McKinney in Collin County. We live about 20-something miles north of Dallas.<\/p>\n

Oh, but more importantly, it takes us about 12 minutes to drive to where our granddaughter lives.<\/p>\n

We have some technological devices are our disposal to help us stumble and bumble our way around. They all work pretty well.<\/p>\n

We have Google apps on our cell phones. The smart phones are pretty damn smart, if you know what I mean — and I know that you do. Hey, we don’t even have to provide a physical address to these devices; we just type in the place where we’re wanting to go and the phone gives us detailed directions.<\/p>\n

Then we have the GPS system in our 3\/4-ton pickup we have named Big Jake. That system works quite well … as long as the route we intend to travel is an established one that’s been there a while. The Metroplex is full of newly built highways, tollways, turnpikes and parkways. Big Jake’s guidance system, therefore, is a bit of a crap shoot.<\/p>\n

And then … we have the Garmin GPS we store in our Prius. Same problem with the Garmin as with the truck’s built-in GPS system.<\/p>\n

The bottom line? We’re going to rely primarily on our phones’ guidance systems until we feel comfortable enough getting around without any telecommunications assistance.<\/p>\n

It’s going to be some time before that occurs. The Metroplex is hu–u-u-u-ge, sprawling urban center. Dallas\/Fort Worth comprises about 7.5 million residents<\/em> living in the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan area. You get my drift, right?<\/p>\n

But we’ll find our way. Meantime, a prayer or two would be much appreciated.<\/p>\n

One more thing. We had no trouble learning the way to and from our granddaughter’s house.<\/p>\n\n

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Now that I am a 21st-century man — more or less — I can report that we are relying on state-of-the-art navigational technology to help us get from place to place in our new community. We live in Fairview, Texas — which is tucked between Allen and McKinney in Collin County. We live about 20-something … Continue reading Happy Trails, Part 117: Technology comes in handy<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1246,3007,3920],"class_list":["post-31485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dallas-fort-worth","tag-metroplex","tag-retirement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31485"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31488,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31485\/revisions\/31488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}