Headed to Outer Banks, NC

I was just read­ing a post I wrote last year about OBX and I chuck­led. Sure, the shop­ping is a mess and the tv pack­ages may not be up to snuff, but I can’t tell you how much I’m look­ing for­ward to being down there again, espe­cial­ly after every­thing that hap­pened with Irene. The thought of the Out­er Banks being swept away was more than I could bear. When I try to think of a suit­able replace­ment my mind goes blank. I can’t think of any­where at the Jer­sey Shore being near­ly as relax­ing and remote.

I’m mak­ing a few prepa­ra­tions for the trip. I’m going to try the Mapquest app for nav­i­ga­tion, ditch­ing the native Maps app because with­out voice noti­fi­ca­tions, I’m lost. There’s no way I’m going to be ref­er­enc­ing my phone the entire trip. A quick scan reveals that there will be no such func­tion­al­i­ty added when iOS 5 rolls out lat­er this year, which is a dis­ap­point­ment. I’m a lit­tle gun­shy about Mapquest based on my expe­ri­ences with the ser­vice some ten years ago. All it took were some bad direc­tions on a par­tic­u­lar­ly stress­ful U‑Haul dri­ve and I’d had enough. Mapquest has been syn­ony­mous with bad, dan­ger­ous direc­tions ever since. I’m glad I can laugh about it now, but veer­ing across traf­fic to exit Rt 78 to an access road in a steady down­pour is not my idea of a good time.

I’m look­ing for­ward to an unevent­ful dri­ve and a very relax­ing week at the beach. I may even do a lit­tle read­ing while I’m down there!