We might have seen this one coming, Mrs. Tom Tom, our GPS navigation system, was increasingly petulant with us. She would give up and announce "You have arrived!" at some of the oddest times. To me, it sounded like she was saying, "Please pull over and let me out for a smoke; and could you be a dear and make me a martini?" Then again, perhaps that was just me talking.
We were on the outskirts of Saint-Naizare, which is a coastal city in Western France, where the Loire River empties into the Atlantic. As we were nearing the city, Karen said, "Oh my God, the Tom Tom is saying battery low!" Now, the Tom Tom is constantly hooked into our cigarette lighter, so we didn't think that the battery was an issue, but apparently it was. Mrs. Tom Tom blacked out and we were without direction, armed only with an AAA map of France.
If you are used to traveling in the US, where an AAA map of a state, like, say, Oregon, can actually be helpful, you won't fully appreciate how useless a regular foldout map is in Europe. People use map books over here, which have individual pages dedicated to a few acres of roads. The concept of fitting the road system onto a foldout road map does not work here. You may get a general direction as in "Paris is to the North" and you may have a road that looks nice, "The A7 looks like a big highway heading that way." but you will have no idea how to get there, when the road will give up and dump you off somewhere, and how you would ever get to an individual spot smaller than "Paris".
In the meantime, Karen had been working on the separate navigation system on our rental. Since we had a Tom Tom, we had not ordered the navigation system and the few times we had played with it the radio had come on and the navigation system would occasionally say, "navigation system not operating", so we left it alone. At this point, it was becoming one of our few options, so Karen went at it with extra effort. Ultimately, as I was driving around freighters and cranes trying to find my way out of the port, "Emma" (since she has a British accent and I always liked Emma Peel) came alive and reported that she was "Calculating our route." Success!!!! We high-fived each other and gave the wheel to Emma who, after looking about the commercial port area and saying something like "How the hell did we end up here?" proceeded to guide us back around several bays and back to a very nice bay overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the parking lot for our hotel.
Our hotel was the Best Western Hotel De La Plage and it was right on the beach. It turns out that the name is not a reference to the "Plague" which I thought it was, but "Plage" which is the French word for "Beach" which I suppose sounds more inviting. On registration, we asked if we could have a higher floor (which we normally prefer) and the receptionist said, "You have a balcony on the first floor overlooking the ocean, I think you will prefer that." She was right, we did. We iced down a bottle of champagne, sat out on the balcony and were in heaven, no further transport needed!
That evening, Karen was working on the question, "What is wrong with Mrs. Tom Tom?" We had a variety of theories, but eventually Karen was able to store up a bit of a charge. The next day, we double-teamed it with both Mrs. Tom Tom and Emma reporting in. While it was interesting, they didn't always agree and they had different timing as to when they would give directions. Mrs. Tom Tom tended to repeat herself and remind you constantly that a turn was coming, sort of "Turn, turn, turn, you stupid Moron!" Whereas Emma tended to think if she had informed you once, that was enough, "Turn right in one and a half kilometres; I'm going to have a cup of tea now."
Very shortly, Mrs. Tom Tom reported that her battery was low again (after less than half an hour) and she was about to sign off, so we were left to rely on Emma. Mrs. Tom Tom has been in storage since then, awaiting our return to the States where we intend to ship her back to Tom Tom Land with our regards.
Emma has been quite helpful on a number of occasions. However, she has a serious predilection for back roads and roundabouts, when perfectly good freeways are close and available. We aren't sure whether she is afraid of going fast or she just prefers the countryside, but it has been a bit on the annoying side. There have been a number of times where she will send you on a series of roundabouts and turns where you would swear you were going around in a circle only to find out that you have actually been going around in a circle and she brought you back to the point of departure. We have been forced to refuse to comply with her instructions and keep going in a particular direction until she gives up and agrees to take you to your destination. Even then, she will occasionally throw in a "turn left followed by a hard left" just to see if you are awake. Karen and I have had a series of discussions whether the selection of "Fastest", "Shortest" or "Optimize Route" would be the best for our chosen route, but they don't seem to affect Emma. She still will take you where she wants to go, if there are places she hasn't yet been she might take you there, and eventually as she tires, she might take you to (or near) your destination. Still she is better than the Perpetually Low Battery Mrs. Tom Tom and light years ahead of our AAA map of France.
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