Right about this time of year, in 1952 or '53, my parents stuffed me and my brother Dan and our Aunt Sarah into the Buick Special and headed for Florida.

Aunt Sarah was positioned between Dan and me in the back seat, to keep us from killing each other. She read us Zane Grey's "Riders of the Purple Sage" whenever we got tired of playing the license plate game or the alphabet game, or got bored with spotting and then singing the Burma-Shave jingles. Gas probably cost 25 cents a gallon, and we traveled sedately most of the time at about 45 mph.

Why so slowly?

There were no interstates.

We got on the newly constructed Route 128 in Lynnfield, Mass. -- a divided highway, two lanes in each direction and a miracle of modern engineering -- and went all the way to Dedham, Mass., where it ran out and merged with Route 1. Next, the Berlin Turnpike in Connecticut, another stretch on Route 1, and then we got to New Jersey and the brand-new New Jersey Turnpike.

We marveled at the toll booths and the rest areas. "N-J-T-P," my brother and I sang endlessly, "N-J-T-P," until Aunt Sarah grimly pulled out her book and quelled us with tales of horses, sagebrush, cowboy heroes and villains.

There were no more highways of the future after that, as I remember. It was Route 1 all the way. The constants were the gas stations, Howard Johnsons, and speed traps (they nabbed my Mom several times, especially in Georgia).

But other features slowly changed as we progressed.

Goodbye snow, hello Spanish moss. Goodbye white clapboard houses with black shutters, hello brick row houses, then ranch houses and tarpaper shacks.

Hello segregation and signs on the drinking fountains. (We were puzzled and offended. Which ones should the Jews drink from?)

Cold giving way to heat, allowing us to ride with the windows open (no a/c).

And no interstates.

What impressed me about our adventure was the trip in the car all the way to Florida, not Florida itself. What, not even Disney? Well, there was no Disney World yet. Miami Beach was our destination. I have some dim memories of watching alligator wrestling, a motel with a swimming pool (wow), Wolfie's Delicatessen. But Route 1 is what I mostly recall.

Like all good 1950s children, we learned our best lessons on the road.

I am not making a case for the good old days. I tell this little story because I want us to consider how changes in technology and social policy affect our lives, both what we do and even how we think.

Such a trip as ours, and what we learned, would be almost impossible today. It takes a real effort to get off the interstates onto the "blue highways."

If you do, you may find services like gas stations, motels, restaurants, but most of the ones we are used to and are looking for these days are clustered around an interstate.

On the "blue highways" you may find Joe's Roadkill Grill, but not McDonalds; the Bates Motel but not Motel 6. The physical geography of America has been changed by 50 years of interstate highways.

So has the mental geography -- on our Florida trip we didn't always go into the Howard Johnsons, but chose little local places that were right there on Route 1. Now there are literary works and directions about how to do what we "just did" back then.

Why?

Because now, many of us while traveling feel more comfortable with what we already know.

For another thing, most lives now don't have the time to "waste" on the drive down and back to Florida.

The money for gas today would make such a trip too expensive for many folks. It also would be hard to peel the kids away from their iPods and their video games and get them to look out the window to play the alphabet game.

The social policy that led to the interstates was positive in its goals.

Undoubtedly President Eisenhower and legislators were thinking about what an interstate highway system would mean for defense and for commerce and the movement of goods and people around the United States. Our very own federal and state tax dollars built that system, and it changed the face of America.

These changes in technology had some further unintended consequences, too.

Over-dependence on private instead of public transport, environmental impacts and global warming, dependence on petroleum, the slow deaths of small towns bypassed by the new highways.

The interstate system really was a triumph of modern engineering, but we are still learning what else our tax dollars paid for.

What will technological change create, and our tax dollars buy, that again changes our world and our minds? Right now, today, we can see outlines of new worlds emerging.

The "digital natives" who are growing up with Internet connections, individualized news and media, and memberships in cyber-interest groups, will be very different social creatures, will know different things, and will see the world differently from those of us who are "digital immigrants" and who still like to look out the car window.

The concern about global warming, and the need to find sources of renewable energy, will cause more changes in the geography of our country than we can now foresee. Our minds will change too, as we embrace sustainability and all the new practices and social norms that it will entail.

So here's a challenge for you -- climb up to a good height where you can look down and see a big highway. It is really a fantastic feat of engineering, just like my Dad said. Examine this huge construction of concrete, metal and stone -- one that will outlast many other human-built structures.

And then, while you are up there in that nice high place, sit down for a moment or two, turn off your iPod and your GPS and your cell phone and your BlackBerry and all the rest of it, and think about all the intended and unintended consequences that this one innovation has had.

Then dream a little about how current innovations are changing our lives and our thoughts.

Finally, you "digital natives," turn your stuff back on and share your thoughts with all your best friends. And happy traveling.

Theodora J. Kalikow is president of the University of Maine at Farmington. She can be reached at kalikow@maine.edu