Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

I learned a number of things on our trip.

One of the things I learned was that there are Dunkin' Donuts everywhere in Massachusetts! If you go to Maine, drive from Boston! It's donut and coffee heaven all along the way. Who knew?

And another, more interesting thing is this. In Maine you are constantly driving 11 miles.

Honestly. Anywhere you're going, no matter where, you will drive in 11-mile increments. I'm not kidding. Wherever you go - whether it's 63, or 97, or 130 miles away - it will be divided up mostly into 11-mileses.

How do I know?

My parents bought a new GPS and gave us their old one. Her name is Alice.

Incidentally, their new one, which has a lot more bells and whistles? She does not yet have a name. So if you have any suggestions, I'll pass them along to Betty.

Anyway. So Alice? Knows pretty much everything.

We brought her with us and not only did she save us $10 per day in GPS rental, but she got us all over rural Maine. Which, as far as I can tell, is the entire state. She even found the place we were staying, which was both small and not really main-roadish. (But very Maine-roadish. Heh.)

But it was always, always 11 miles. "Please drive the highlighted route. Then turn left on Route 127. Then drive 11 miles."

"In point five miles, turn right on US 1. Then drive 11 miles."

Honestly. You try it; 11 miles is the magic number in Maine.

One thing I like about Alice is that she is both firm and patient. When you fuck up her instructions, all she says is, "Recalculating."

You can imagine the electronic sigh before she says it, though.

You know she's all, why are these people so stupid? I tell them a mile beforehand, and again half a mile before, and somehow, they still miss the turn.

Cretins.

But she never says this. Just, "Recalculating."

Plus, she also doesn't say, "Another stop at Dunkin' Donuts? It's as if you don't even want to fit in your wedding dress."

To which I would've had to say, "Shut it, Alice."

So anyway, we'd disappoint Alice, and she'd recalculate. And gently lead you around the block to go back in the correct direction.

"Recalculating."

When you know she really wanted to say, "I'm sick of recalculating! How fucking hard is it to get on 295 South? You've done it three fucking times since you arrived yesterday! When you didn't actually need to!"

Recalculating.

We love Alice.