Thats pretty funny. I lived in Chicago until i was 30 (1975-2005). I got my license at 16 so i had been driving for a while before mapquest became part of our lives. I used to have 3 maps in my car. 1 small fold out map of Illinois for any time i left Chicago. 1 cool little flip book cook county (Chicago) map book and the big giant book for cross country road trips.

After driving in Chicago for a year i knew where everything was. It was rare that i didn't know a street and whenever that happened i knew it was the south east side of Chicago where i never went. With an address and street name i could find anything.

I remember getting my first car with a built in compass. In Chicago you can easily figure out north south east and west but in the suburbs it was harder because of the sub division layouts. The compass was my first crutch. Then it was mapquest or google maps and finally my first iPhone. I don't even own a map now.

I used to get super frustrated with people who couldn't read maps. I would be driving and they would be trying to read the map and i would always have to pull over and read it myself. Now i am the WORST navigator. I use GPS to get home from the local grocery store even though i have lived here over a year now. I have zero sense of direction. I just rely on GPS. I would be in big trouble without it.

Side note...anyone remember when mapquest had a lot of errors? That was always fun!