A couple of months ago, I took the family out for ice cream as an end of summer treat. We decided to try a stand famous for its homemade ice cream and giant portions not too far from us that friends had recommended. It was located in a little town across the border in New Hampshire, but I wasn’t sure how to get to the stand, so I fired up Google Maps on my Android phone and off we went.
The built-in navigation didn’t take me exactly where I expected, but we live in a pretty rural area with lots of little back roads, so I just went with it. It wasn’t long before we came to a well-used dirt road, but the little blue arrow kept pointing ahead, so we forged ahead in our Honda Pilot. Another mile or so brought us to another dirt road, this one marked with a sign stating that the road was not town-maintained. Again, not a big deal in these parts, especially with a decent all-wheel drive vehicle and no snow on the ground.
Three miles later, after the kids and I had cleared fallen trees, my oldest boys had walked along beside the car as spotters for the larger obstacles, and my wife had nearly stroked out, we came back to pavement. A sign marked this end of the dirt road, noting that it was a Class 6 trail, not recommended for passenger vehicles. Woops. But Google said to keep going! And sure, we could have gone back, but that wouldn’t have been the testosterone-filled thing to do. My dad certainly wouldn’t have gone back. What sort of example would I have been setting for my sons? (Don’t answer that.)
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