It began last week near the infamous “spaghetti interchange” at the southern tip of Washington, D.C.

One of my sons, Matt, lives there, in Springfield, Va.

In Springfield, the western half of the interstate “Beltway” that surrounds Washington comes in from the northwest as Interstate 495. It connects with the eastern half of the Beltway, also I-495.

Interstate 95, the parent of the Beltway, also resumes its Maine-to-Florida path there. So we have three huge freeways — so far.

But wait.

Through the center of Washington runs I-395, interchanging in Springfield with, you guessed it, 495 west, 495 east and 95.

The “plus sign” of the intersection consists of, by my count on a Google map, 12 lanes from the west; 10 lanes from the south; 12 lanes from the east; and eight lanes from the north.

Some lanes are loops that weave above and beneath each other. You cannot get to where your eyes say you ought to be, because the looped lane swings in another direction.

On a previous visit, I entered this mish-mash from the east, and emerged in a right-hand lane. I had 500 feet to get to the extreme left-hand lane — in bumper-to-bumper traffic moving at 40-50 mph.

I missed, and spent the next 20 minutes riding the Interstate version of a merry-go-round. On my next try, I made it across those lanes, cheered on by Washingtonians who waved energetically with some of their fingers.

That is the “spaghetti interchange.”

Last Wednesday, my son Greg and I sat in the parking lot of a motel, within a few hundred yards of that interchange. We had attended the high school graduation party for Matt’s twins, Anna and Andrew. Now, we needed to head south to Williamsburg, Va., to visit daughter Natalie and her family.

I turned on the GPS unit sitting atop the dashboard. It flickered through a few screenshots.

“Loading maps,” it said.

A minute later, it still said, “loading maps.”

Five minutes later, ditto. Ugh.

I tried rebooting, unplugging and replugging, and saying bad words.

Still “loading maps.”

What ever would I do? The GPS would rescue if I got shunted onto the wrong highway lane.

How could I get to see my daughter? Oh, woe is me!

Then I remembered the fold-up map of Virginia and the magazine-like atlas sitting atop the shelf behind the rear seat.

I felt like a Boy Scout, having to depend on such primitive skills as map reading and orienteering.

Orienteering was made easier by my car’s mirror. Inside it is a computerized compass.

All I needed to do was enter the interchange with what lanes to take in mind, and hope that as we emerged, the computerized compass would say, “S” for “south.”

Happily, this all occurred near 9:30 a.m., when the morning rush hour was abating.

So off we went, and by golly, it worked. There is life without GPS.

It did not work perfectly, of course. We ended up on U.S. Route 1, not on I-95. The two roads run parallel.

From Route 1, I could catch glimpses of I-95: bumper-to-bumper, or nearly so, trucks and cars weaving at 70 mph.

I looked back at Route 1. It has intersections and traffic signals. But it also has six lanes, three in each direction, and almost no traffic at that hour, and I only saw two trucks.

“This is relaxing!” I said to Greg.

“Mmmpfh,” Greg replied. He was already engrossed in playing a make-a-field-goal game on his IPod.

So we stayed on Route 1 for an hour, all the way to Fredericksburg. That took about 10 minutes longer than it probably would have taken on I-95. But we enjoyed the trip, seeing the sights, noting the astonishing and ever-increasing construction of multiple apartment complexes, absorbing the multicultural nature of the region via storefront signs in Spanish, Korean, Arabic (I think), etc.

At Fredericksburg, we could have gotten onto I-95 to take it south to I-64 and go halfway toward Williamsburg before exiting for Natalie’s neighborhood.

But non-Interstate Route 17 goes the same way, just a bit more northward.

We took it.

Again, traffic signals, cross streets and occasional small towns.

But also, four lanes, two each way, with almost no traffic and only a handful of tractor-trailers. Another relaxing drive.

We made it to Natalie’s without the GPS, needing only one quick phone call to verify the last stage of the route. I spent the day spoiling grandchildren.

The next day, I tried the GPS again. It resurrected itself, and it did function for the trip home.

I refolded the map and returned the atlas to its shelf.

But I still took non-Interstate stretches of Routes 17 and 522.

The GPS is wonderfully precise, when it works. But it tells everybody to take the same route, which leads to congestion, to near misses, to tension.

The poet Robert Frost was correct.

The road less traveled does make all the difference.

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Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: denny2319@windstream.net