My Phone Wants to go to the Zoo!

My phone wants me to take it someplace fun again.

I used to joke to Anna, back in the pre-pandemic days, that my phone wants to go somewhere interesting--Rock City, Book Nook, the zoo.

See, when I drive (with my phone securely in a phone holder attached to the dashboard, of course) I use Android Auto, which, among other things, displays Navigate guesses/suggestions for places it thinks you might be going, based, I suppose, on where you are, where you often go, your recent Google Maps activity, and (I'm going to say but don't actually believe) where it wants to go. (If you tap on one of these guesses/suggestions, Android Auto gives you step-by-step directions to that place...but you probably figured that out already, didn't you?)

It used to regularly include in its Navigate guesses/suggestions some of the cool places I have saved in my Google Maps profile--bookstores, parks, various kinds of attractions; it was like my phone was saying, "Hey, I know...let's go to Rock City! Wouldn't that be fun?" (Even when I was only going the three miles to the grocery store it would make these suggestions. It was kind of sad, really.)

But a while back it stopped. My phone, apparently, was resigned to sheltering-in-place/quarantining/staying close to home for a while. For a long time, its Navigate guesses/suggestions included only the mundane places I routinely go: Work, Kroger, Home.

But now my phone apparently wants to go out to fun places again. Several times in the last month it has included Zoo Atlanta in its list of Navigate guesses/suggestions.

It's a good idea. Maybe I'll take it there soon.