Maps
There was a day when you had to stop some place and buy a map. I remember pulling into shady places looking for a street map so we could find some party or friend's house. Things have changed. The other day Nat printed out a map to a friend's house and it guided us to our destination with the help of a mobile phone and constant communication.
We didn't need an atlas of Texas to get to our friend's place. We really only needed the final couple of miles. The map we printed was relatively detailed and represented only a small area. We knew how to get to the specific exit on the specific freeway. From there, it was guess work.
I remember blundering around the inside of a vehicle by flashlight or worse, dome light, trying to read oddly angled text that meanders along a crooked line on a page that was not printed at nearly high enough resolution for the size of the type. I have a vivid memory of one road appearing to cross the other when in reality, they only came close to one another and did not have a connection. I forget the barrier to be crossed to get from one to the other without rounding miles out of the way.
Though I have a GPS unit somewhere, I've never used it. It is too difficult to program. The software used to connect it to the computer is cumbersome and only works with proprietary map data. I've seen them used. The little homing pidgins work well when the geek wielding them knows their stuff.
HBO had a show about some Russian soldiers in a tank in Afghanistan during that conflict. The tank commander decided to turn to the highway and get back to base faster. The funniest thing though, there are these two squiggly lines between their position and the highway. hmmmm. Oh, well, full speed ahead!  Well, they end up being quite fortunate that it is broad daylight because those squiggly lines turn out to be a tremendous ravine. It didn't help that the engineer had fermented most of the break fluid into moon-shine.  With a quick chat to a truck on the other side (running down the highway) over the radio they find that it is hundreds of miles before there is a crossing. There, the adventure begins.
Map reading is as much art as science. There are things implied, but not said on some maps. Those colors just might mean something. I've witnessed a friend mark the speed traps on a map to avoid tickets. Every one has at one point stuck pins in a map for some reason or another. Now, I save favorites and paste links into emails.
Mobile phones will surf the net and display maps these days. I cannot wait until the day that I look something up from the passenger seat and save the day in some adventure with our friends.