Google Maps on the iPhone

It didn't occur to me until several hours after Mike and I finally found our way to the Delegal Creek Marina after being somewhat lost up the Vernon River that I had had the technology we could have used to find our way clipped to my belt the whole time: my iPhone.

After the laptop's battery died, I turned to paper charts and my Garmin eTrex Vista handheld GPS for an idea of our position. But the edge of the chart cut off the inland detail we needed and the GPS's tiny black-and-white screen showed only the grossest detail in clunky geometric blocks. Thus, we missed our turn and took a scenic tour up the river until we figured out where we were.

I'm sure I'm not alone in having the tendency to think of my iPhone primarily as a phone instead of as a small computer with almost unlimited capability, including the built-in Google Maps app. If I had pulled out my iPhone instead of squinting at my GPS, we would have known exactly where we were, but that thought never occurred to me or to Mike, who was texting his wife that morning from his own cell phone. Oh, well. It's true what they say: Life is a "live and learn" proposition.