I work in downtown Cleveland and needed to both drop by an Apple Retail Store and go to the IX Center today. Apple closes at 9pm, the same time I'd be finished at the IX Center (Cleveland Boat Show). So, must drop by an Apple Retail Store before 6pm when I need to be at IX Center. Work ends around 4-ish (I start early), so that rules out a trip to the east side (Legacy Village) only to cross over town to get to the IX Center (south-west side). There's an Apple Retail Store at Crocker Park. I dislike Crocker Park only slightly more than Legacy Village. Mostly the fake architecture and pretense at being a community, a village. I like Legacy Village slightly more than Crocker Park only because I have been desensitized to the fakeness, I suppose.
maps.google.com rocks, in my opinion. You tell it where you want to start, where you want to go and choose if you want to drive, walk or take transit. I use it a dozen times a week, easily. Google's Mobile Maps on my Blackberry is even cooler. Bear with me, I'll get to that.
So I remember where I left the car, get started and then remember that the East 9th Street entrance to West I90 is closed. Something about a bridge being too stressed. I know that there's this thing called I490 that might help, so I spin myself off toward I77 hoping to get connected. The GPSr in my Blackberry connects to Google's Mobile Maps and I tell it to get me to Crocker Park. Bingo! I'm on I77 southbound, I490 westbound, etc., etc., and soon there's the exit to Crocker Park.
Crocker Park is big, huge, confusing and you can't park near where you want to be. I know, it's supposed to be like that. And I'm not the kind of person who needs to drive everywhere. I'd just like to know where I'm going after I park.
No maps in the parking garage and no sense that I'm . . . anywhere, really. Back to Google's Mobile Maps. I walk out to get a clear fix with my GPSr and ask my Blackberry where the Apple Retail Store is. Bing! Now I'm in Geocaching mode and I find it quite easily.
Aside: Apple's store is amazing for both the "hunter" and the "gatherer" types. I was in "hunter" mode and the clock was ticking. I walk in, scare the orange-shirted concierge (must have had a "get out of my way" look) and find the Disk Warrior box I think I want/need. Blue-shirted person comes up, swipes my credit card, scans the box, I tell her to send me the email receipt, she confirms my purchase, asks me if I want a bag (no!) and I'm out of there. Total time at Apple: four minutes.
Back to the car following the breadcrumbs I'd dropped earlier and once in the car, I point it south and tell Google's Mobile Maps where I want to go.
Here's where I start driving blind. There's this cultural thing in Cleveland that stipulates that if you're an EastSider, you're not permitted to travel on the WestSide and vice versa. Border crossings, card checks, etc. So here I am, an EastSider, traveling on the WestSide from a somewhat unknown location to a location I know quite well but never from this direction. A Real EastSider would have gotten back on I90 until they were back in friendly territory and traveled to the IX Center the approved way. But I don't have the time.
So my GPSr and Google's Mobile Maps take me south into the fuzzy area known as WestSide. I know none of the names of the streets, the communities, the buildings: nothing. 
(Once I thought I saw US20 but since it wasn't called Euclid Avenue, I couldn't be sure!) It's like the corner of the map that gets folded and unfolded until the paper fibers aren't there anymore. That's what the WestSide looks like to EastSiders.
But hey, this is an amazing place! Or was I just amazed that my GPSr got me to where I wanted to be? I drove through neighborhoods and along golf courses, through the Rocky River park and saw amazing scenery. When I drove up to the IX Center after not knowing where I had been for twenty minutes, I felt like Hornblower when he brought his ship up to the Panama (?) shore after three months at sea and no landfall. Just amazing.
But it gets better. I was telling this story to my fellow boat-builder colleague who, it turns out, lives on Porter Road along my route. And he validated, turn-by-turn, that Google's Mobile Maps took me the right way. In fact, it was the way he frequently drives. Amazing.
So I think I will be less afraid of the WestSide from now on. A little.
Note: I'm mostly kidding. I feel this way about most places I can't get to easily or conveniently via bus/train. And I'm sure that many WestSiders feel the same way about the EastSide. Seriously.
Someday I'll have to tell you why we live on the EastSide.
