Our Narrator is Quite Confident

Apple’s “maps” app, (I just checked to make sure it wasn’t named iMaps) has a British gentleman who narrates directions if you press start on the function.  It certainly sounds like a human, and not a robot.  And I used him incessantly when I was in Italy two years ago.  I associate his voice with British pronunciations of words like “San Nicola la Strada” and “Via G Marconi to Positano.” Now he is directing me through eastern Ulster County like a pro.  So did this gent really record all these street names or is there a machine learning function that allows the computer generated voice to approximate all the pronunciations?

It’s lovely over here, driving down to Gardiner and over to Milton.  I don’t know anything about these places.  If we were driving around the neighboring counties on the other side of the river, I’d know exactly where I was heading.  But this is all mysterious.  Monty, our narrator, is quite confident and we follow him without thinking. 

I am mostly fixated on the trees.  These towns seem to have plenty of trees that are 100 or so years old.  But every other turn there is a plane tree or an oak that must be four hundred years old.  Early in the trees progression, everything around them that might have enjoyed a bit of sun must have been removed and so they grew broad as well as tall.  I tell my kids that, that tree, (is it a sycamore?) must have been here when George Washington was a kid, when this was Indian territory.  This does not, however, spark a reply. 

We are heading to a restaurant within the Buttermilk Falls Inn.  One “n” less and you’d have a nice Maurice Sendack-like visual to that. “Milk for the morning cake!” This conference center is tucked into the woods, off the road.  Despite Monty getting me to the proper entrance, once inside, I am quickly lost.  My mother is giving me directions, which I assume leads off down a road this way.  Fortunately a waitress runs out of the building, down the road and stops us from this folly.  Patiently, she then accompanies us back to the restaurant and up to our table. 

Fine dining in Milton, is fine with me.  The waitress introduces us to her daughter who is also working this evening. Our meal is memorable, and I’m only sorry my wife didn’t get to join us this evening to learn about what’s available locally. She also, it dawns on me as I try to pay, has my credit card with her.  Outside by the small graveyard is an enormous pine that must be a few hundred years old.