“Driving” on Google Street View. The other day, on the phone with my dad, I was telling him that he could see his home in Maysville, Okla., online if he went to “Google Maps.” Not just a satellite view but a street view. He’d never heard of such a thing, and I showed him how to find it online, which he did. I was online simultaneously, seeing the same image.

After we’d hung up, I rotated the view to look east down 2nd Street. I then advanced the view one click, which carried me about 50 or 100 feet to the intersection of the Second and Pecan – which is the corner he lives on. Then I turned north, to look up Pecan. Then I advanced the perspective one click, and again moved “forward,” and I drew up to a point that I knew to be even with the east side of his house, though I was looking up a street, not facing a house. So I rotated the view 90 degrees to the left and looked at his side entrance and the carport behind. Then I wondered if I could “drive” around his block. So I rotated the view back to the roadway, and advanced to the next corner, made a left, advanced to the next corner, etc., etc., and got back to his front yard. Ha! Then, I wondered if I could “drive” myself about six blocks to downtown. I did! All of this took less than 5 minutes. Then I wondered if I could take Highway 19 (which cuts through downtown) out to the outskirts of town. Which I did. And I found myself “looking” at the hill out east of town. And then, “like stout Cortez, who with eagle eyes, stared at the Pacific,” I wondered, with a wild surmise, if I could actually drive to the next town! The next town is Pauls Valley, 12 miles away. And I am here to tell you that it can be done. It took me, oh, about 20 minutes – not much more time than it would have taken me to actually drive the route, as I have driven it so many times in years past. While I was in Pauls Valley I got a milkshake at the drive-through at Braums. Okay, just kidding about that part. But I DID “drive” from one town to another. Wonder what road trip I should take next?