Thank God for OnStar!!

My friends and I headed off for the beach yesterday. All was going smoothly---rush hour through Birmingham moved pretty quickly. We should have known that when our food stop wasn't all that great, we were "in" for it. We stopped at Taco Bell. Pam and I got the taco salad. It wasn't all that good. The shells seemed "off." I hadn't been there in ages, so was disappointed.

We stopped for gas about 5 hours in to our trip. As I was handling the pump, Pam went in to use the restroom. I decided to take advantage of the bathroom too. When I went to get the keys out of the ignition, I discovered that the door was locked. OMG! Pam had accidentally hit the lock button. When she came out and I told her what happened, she said she heard a little sound, but didn't know what it was. My car alerts you to the fact that you've locked the door with the keys in the ignition before you close the door. It's saved me a few times. Luckily, I have OnStar. They saved the day!! It's magical to me that you can just make a phone call and they can unlock your doors. Of course, I had to listen to a very long commercial about how I'd won a trip the Bahamas before getting to an agent. Really, we were back on the road within 15 minutes. Not much of a delay.

After that, I should have known better than to let Pam take over the wheel. The deer were plentiful and very close to the road. None darted out, so we were okay. But she did hit a big hunk of wood. She said she thought it was an animal. I said that it wouldn't have been such a loud and hard thump if it had been a creature.

With about an hour left of our trip, OnStar came through again. Following their directions, we came to a rather old, small country road. Even though it looked "iffy"---we continued down it. It dead-ended into a pretty nice road, but the guidance said to continue straight ahead. We had to make a guess, so we went left. Our guidance never changed or gave us any indication that we were going the wrong way. Soooo, I called OnStar again to see if we were going the right way. We were. OnStar to the rescue again.

But then, when we were finally only 10 minutes away, OnStar let me down. We saw the sign for Mexico Beach which said we needed to turn right. Our navigation said to go left. We went with that. It was wrong. It told us we had arrived at our destination in the middle of no where. Kind of reminded me of that big story on 20/20 or 60 Minutes about the people who wound up in life threatening situations because their gps had lead them astray. Since it was midnight, I wondered...

We went a little further and saw a hotel. I went in and asked for directions. We, indeed, should have turned right towards Mexico beach. Our other friends who don't understand the meaning of traveling together, had already arrived. They kept calling us. We finally made it.

I love OnStar. I've always had complete faith in it. But now I'm not so sure. Still, I don't think I want to travel without it. It's so nice to have a friendly voice answer any question. Even if they lead you in the wrong direction once in awhile!! I'm still going to thank God for OnStar---otherwise, we'd still be somewhere in Georgia trying to figure out what to do with a locked car.