Early on, we discovered we have very different genetic compasses!  This turned out to be a strategic advantage when we actually started exploring the world.

He can find anything on a map. I get lost following them.  Of course, not too many people still use maps but we are from a different era when pirates sailed the seas and Columbus discovered America by a navigational mistake. Ok, I exaggerate.

Growing up, my dad would pull out a gas station map (they were free then) and plot our travels from one NYC borough to another or plan our imaginary trips to Australia.  My dad loved maps. I couldn’t make heads or tails of them.  And as a New Yorker, I didn’t need to learn to drive. I just needed to navigate the subways whose route maps were designed for directionally-compromised people like me.

Later, as a young married and a new Californian, we relied on the AAA and their fabulous maps and guides to plan camping trips and travel the state.   However, I did finally get a driver’s license when it took me three buses to get to my jobs in San Diego because there was no metro system. Let’s just say, that for the following years, my driving ability was as bad as my map skills. So, he continued to do most of the driving while I held the maps up for his review. This was in the years before GPS, Mapquest and, of course, Google and Apple maps. Still, he remained the primary driver.

My geographical skills came to the fore much later when we started travelling to distant lands.  He can drive us anywhere with the use of a map, digital or physical.  He can also follow Google map directions and take us to the most remote locations or the most byzantine corridors of medieval cities.

But, we learned, he cannot get us home without them!  My superpower is a visual memory of where we’ve been so that I can retrace my steps by signs, shops and geographic anomalies.  Because, while he was always busy following directions, I was busy observing our environs!

Now that Google and Apple in our cars and cellphones always tell us what to do while we drive or walk in new locations, I am able to resist obvious digital errors.  Example: Me “No, we didn’t turn there, we turned at the tavern with the pink pig.”  90% of the time, I am right. 

Two examples of how the Navigator and the Homing Pigeon operate. On last year’s trip to Malaga, Spain we hiked down a steep hill and numerous stone staircases to reach the beach restaurants from our hilltop apartment.  It was clear sailing (er walking) in the daylight.  But our return at night brought us to a crossroads and some cross words.  He insisted we turn up at a corner that simply didn’t exist.  “It must be here because Google says so; so let’s backtrack and look again,” he said.  Remember, it was a very steep climb down and so way more exhausting climb back up.  We kept going back and forth looking for the invisible staircase. Meanwhile, I insisted that we needed to walk further to find the little travel shop we passed on the way down.  Finally, we did ignore Google Map and we found the dark stairway exactly where I remembered it.  Homing Pigeon 1: Navigator 0!

On the same trip, Google directed our little rental car to central Malaga so we could visit the Picasso Museum.  The problem was, Google  kept sending us the wrong way until finally it sent us onto a Pedestrian Only promenade.  We frantically tried to find a way to drive back out amidst the throngs of oblivious locals and tourists who walked right past our car without the least concern or offer of help.  Finally, my Navigator pulled out the little tourist map in the car that had barely any street names, just random lines.  He found the little line that appeared to direct us off the pedestrian way if we just continued our illegal route for a block or two more.  

And, he was right. That little squiggle took us back to a real street.  I was beside myself during all this worrying that we would get arrested or hit someone. But he was right.  Homing Pigeon 1: Navigator 1!

And so, we continue to travel the world together, confident that no matter the destination, he can get us there. And I can get us back home… wherever home may be! 

 We may not be able to rely on Google or Apple maps, but we can rely on each other.

P.S. I created both illustrations using Gemini AI for the first time! I simply described an image of a navigator in a convertible with a homing pigeon with curly hair.