Small Musings - The Round About

In the year 2002, when I got my US driving license, me and my friend went on a road trip to Boston [from Jersey]. It was a time period when GPS was not widely used and there was no Google map. We will get the road map from AAA, carry a road atlas and print the direction from mapquest. Interestingly, the direction was like 

...

take the first exit in the round about. 

...

take the second exit in the round about. 

...

take the third exit in the round about. 

Being the first time road trippers, we did not know what it really meant. Whenever we reach a roundabout, we will take a random exit. It took a while to read through the road map and the direction and understand that the round about is in the intersection without traffic lights; From our approaching point, there can be three ways to leave the round about. The first exit is equivalent to the right turn, third exit is equivalent to the left turn. If we want to continue in the same road that we travel, it will be second exit. 

When we figured it out [after a while and multiple U-turns], it felt like we conquered the world. It was a small win but a worthy one :-)

Source: maxresdefault.jpg [Courtesy: images.google.com]

Recently, while driving with my family, in one of the round about, I remembered this incident and explained it to my kids. They were clueless on what i was talking about. In fact, they were even surprised that we were referring to paper maps and print outs for direction. Of course, with the technology advancements, these kids will also have many scope to experience these kind of small amusements. 

It brought a smile in my mind and a spike of happiness when I remembered this and hence this post. If you remember any such small wins / moment of happiness, please leave a comment.