A sign of the Times

I have had several people look at me and laugh when I explain to them that I live in "Rural Webster County".  Is there anything in Webster County thats not Rural they ask?  Well.... they have a point there.

Webster county 911 addresses have been in use for well over a year - closer to two if I remember correctly, this being said, if you are trying to navigate through the county please do not expect that your iPhone mapping program or TomTom GPS will be able to get you where you are going even with the new fangled 911 addresses, you will find yourself LOST!!  Not just lost in the sense that you can call and give someone a geographical point or read then the road names at the nearest intersection - lost as in - No Service, not road signs and no houses for miles kind of lost.

This was the fact last week when a dusty van pulled slowly into our yard carrying a very polite gentleman who was looking for the residence of a friend.  He was armed with a GPS and a cell phone - and lost.  He had been driving around for over an hour and had stopped at a few houses - only to find no one home.  I told him that this was the norm and that I would try and help get him to his destination. Of course during this time his GPS jumped right in to let is know that he was recalculating - he said that he had been doing that for at least half and hour.  He gave me a strange look when I told him that he needed to switch to a female voice - it made sense to me.

Not being from this area I am often at a loss when asked where Mr and Mrs. XXXX live - I do recognize names that I have heard mentioned - but could not tell you where they live.  He had an address and a name and a phone number - so I felt that if we really tried we could get the job done.

I ran inside to receive my iPhone in hopes that I could use the resident iMap application to give him directions.  I carefully input the address information and hit find directions....... tick tick tick the seconds passed - flash the screen opened to a map indicating that the asked for address was located 76.4 miles away - Hmmm - lets look at this - well, goofy application - I want and address in Eupora MS not Louisville....  let's try again.... hmmmmm okay now it is pointing to an address in Houlka??? 

Okay lets back-up.  The gentleman told me that he had some directions that he had tried to follow but thought that maybe he had gone too far.  (When in doubt - READ THE DIRECTIONS!!) 

After pulling up a local map for the area on my trusty iPhone and tracking the directions carefully - we found that he had not gone far enough - and I was able to triangulate his destination.  One thing that I did notice on the map is that it had the old highway numbers as well as the new 911 road/street names so I was able to write down a turn by turn listing of roads and streets and even showed him what the turns looked like if you were a bird (nifty satellite view). 

As I waved goodbye to my new friend I began to laugh - I remembered that he did have a phone number and that I did have phone service - now why did we spend 15 minutes clicking and clacking on that iPhone when all we had to do was call his friend for more directions!!!!

This and That

Recent photo "contests" on one of my favorite blogs, The Pioneer Woman,  had me  looking through some of my older photos.  I really enjoy looking back over some of these as they bring back warm memories and many laughs. Enjoy!!

Dominos at the Farm!

 

My sweet Bonnie after she found the black iron pot and crawled into it! 

  

We lost this big tree this past year.  

  

  

Love this photo.