Doreen & Dead Cat Alley

When we took our trip down to Southern California, Liz & I borrowed her husband's GPS. We dubbed her "Joyce." Joyce is pretty no-nonsense, knows where to go, and how to get there. Occasionally we got off track and Joyce consistently corrected us and helped us get our bearing. I told Mr. Scottie Dog that I wanted to have a Joyce in my car.So here's MY GPS....we got a different brand and she has a different voice...not exactly like Joyce, so we named her "Doreen." Don't know why, it just seemed to fit. Doreen came with a windshield suction-cup attachment with a note on the box: "Suction-cup mount is illegal in the states of California and Minnesota." Hmmmm. Our family lives in California AND Minnesota. So Mr. Scottie Dog went to work and in just 15 minutes he had Doreen mounted on the dashboard o my Chevy Tahoe. He's a wonder. I think he can do anything. I am sure that "McGyver" was modeled after him. Thanks, Mr. Scottie Dog!

Today when I picked Sydney up from Pre-School I introduced her to Doreen. "Is she as smart as Joyce?" Sydney asked. "Well, let's try her out," I replied. So we plugged in 301 W. Harris St. Then I said, "We'll see what Doreen does when we make a side trip to get gas." Doreen was one smart cookie.....every time we made a different turn from her instructions she was quick to state: "Recalculating!" Syd repeated each turn...."LEFT" or "RIGHT." We had fun and Doreen got us to The Scottie Dog Store. She knew when we were on a one way street or in an alley.....Speaking of alleys:

On our trip home we stopped in Woodland to visit Bee Hive Quilts. It's a cute little shop in the historic Old Town section of Woodland. Liz found lots of 1930's Fat Quarters and I got presents for my small quilt group, The Grateful Threads. As we drove around the corner to make our way back to the freeway we saw this sign and had to drive down the alley. Hmm, Dead Cat Alley. How did it get it's name? Well, a quick trip to Google and I knew it all. You can read about it here. I love the history behind place names. We like to think that the Walnut tree in our front yard had significance in naming our street. I doubt it, but it sounds good!