The road was red on the tiny screen of my phone. The directions said “rerouting.” We followed blindly, exiting 95 to avoid a congested highway stretch just before the southern entrance to the George Washington Bridge.

Off Route 95 and onto Route 46 then right on North Avenue, one small road led to another equally small road but not a through street. Other cars merged in front of us and suddenly our detour was as congested (well, almost) as the GW Bridge. And we realized that we weren’t the only cars being rerouted by Siri!

Getting off the well traveled route around New York City always makes me a little nervous. I think of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities and the fateful wrong turn the main character, Sherman McCoy, makes.

Slowly we made our way to the traffic light and back onto 95 where all lanes crawled across the bridge, and our view was marred (or enhanced) by the fog.

Are we better off with Google Maps? Showing us traffic and detours, updating our routes with ETAs? Or we were better off in the old days with just maps and AAA TripTiks to show us the way?