>>>What we did also worked in terms of building good relationships. Both call when they need information or guidance, and listen to our advice. (Nathaniel, the 22-year-old, called from Manhattan a few weeks back for the "Mom-ernet." <g> Could I help him find a coffee shop near Washington Square?)
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>>Worked both ways. I had the honor of guiding a daughter or two - me Google maps, she cell phone - but then was also in a situation where it was the other way around, me calling home "OK I'm at the corner of so-and-so, where's that bank now, I'm facing south".
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>Yeah, I think we've done that once or twice.

Amazingly, though, that effect of the maps... they sort of take away the thrill of exploring the 'hood, but with the American love of blind alleys combined with distances it may be a very frustrating sport. Part of learning the area is "if I take a right now, where'd I get", and too often it may not get you anywhere.

The first remote map reading happened when our oldest was on a job interview in Orlando. A year later, I went there to teach her to drive - and oh the surprise when we stumbled upon the hotel where she stayed for the interview. She completely forgot to look it up until, by means of buying a car, her idea of neighborhood widened. It was as if the hotel was in a separate universe until then.

The big thing about Google's maps as they are now, specially with the street view (where available) and Panoramio (where contributors supplied images) is that incredible zoom that's impossible with paper maps, and that I can revisit any place I ever visited and refresh my memory (check that the place actually existed :), see how it looks now (the place in Vrsar where our tent was is now a marina).

>I just loved it, though, when he told me he was calling for the Mom-ernet. <s>

Cute :).