How star-gazing saved my day (night actually)

This was an incident that happened sometime in the summer of 2010. A fun personal memory.

I was coming back to Princeton from Bethlehem. It was a pretty long distance to cover. Some 50-100 miles I guess. I had lent my GPS to a friend of mine, but I had my iPhone, which had an excellent 3G connection, the most upgraded version of Google Maps and a really really bad battery. My friend and I drove to PA and I headed back by myself at 11/12 in the night. I got lost after 15 mins into the drive. My battery had died. I drove further hoping to find a rest area on the highway where there will be some maps/guides to get me back to NJ. I couldn't find any. I really missed the paan-ka-thelas like in India at that point.

I stepped out of the vehicle after driving for about 30 minutes. I stretched and looked up. Orion was at the horizon. That's as close to the zenith it gets at those latitudes. The hunter, Orion, stands with his feet towards the south and head towards the north pretty squarely. I decided to drive towards his right. It would be east. Got to some strange junctions and took a bet on the next turn. A few bad turns later I was headed due East. I knew this would take me to NJ. I stopped again and looked at the sky to be sure. I often used to end up at strange places thinking the road is going straight while the road is actually curving in some direction. Contour Rd. in Gokulam, Mysore is one of those roads. No matter what direction I went in, I ended up at this strange junction called Doctor's corner. I usually had to call my friend Yuvraj to get me out of that place. So I checked the sky again and I saw that Orion had set. Leo had risen completely from the East, which was straight ahead on the road. I went on.

As expected I reached NJ turnpike which is a North-South highway a while later. I could figure out my way from here. It was just a matter of taking Exit 9 towards Route 1 and go straight to Princeton. I finally made it at about 3:00 AM. It was quite an adventure to be on alone. With most of the streets deserted and no passer-by to guide you, the stars are one entity you can turn to.