VANCOUVER, British Columbia--Among the many gadgets I've been traveling with on my Road Trip 2006 around the Pacific Northwest is a Magellan Roadmate 3000T car navigation system.

And I must say, after now being on the road for eight days and using the device quite a bit, it really does work. I have found myself plugging in destinations constantly, especially when I'm trying to get somewhere in a hurry.

And except for a few times when the machine seemed to freak out and duck for cover--basically refusing to tell me anything useful--it has flawlessly directed me to where I've been trying to get, again and again.

The down side of using and depending on this system, on the other hand, is that I have become just that: dependent on it.

In Portland, Ore., Seattle, and again on my way to Vancouver, Wash., I found that I was almost blindly following the directions provided by the navigator. And while I would reach my destination exactly as planned, I had absolutely no idea how I got there. I couldn't even have begun to tell you what roads I took, or how to get back from there without this digital helper.

Now, I admit that this blind reliance is probably foolish, but I can't imagine I'm the only one who uses these devices like this.

Meanwhile, I'm also traveling with a Garmin Nuvi 350 and the couple of times I've tried to get it to tell me how to get where I wanted to go, I have not been able to convince it that I wasn't in Kansas, where Garmin is apparently based.

So, for example, it was happy to give me a route suggestion, but it required hopping on I-35 out of Olathe, Kan.

I'm sure there was a way to tell it I was in California or Oregon, where I actually was. I probably missed some very easy step, but I simply could not figure it out. Since then, I have not had the time to investigate. Stay tuned, because I will be giving it another try.