Actual GPS useage

xample.com:


It's usenet ...

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Not a regular poster but I'll reply anyway!

We live in an RV and travel extensively. I'm rarely traveling without it on.
When I'm traveling in familiar territory I'm not using the routing feature,
but it is on all the same.

One other thing. Occasionally when traveling I get to thinking about other
things & miss my turn. When the routing feature is on, it prompts me that
the turn is coming up.

--
Owen McKenzie
Pigeon Forge, TN

The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe
the people with their own money.
- Unsourced attribution to Alexander Fraser Tytler (often misattributed to
Alexis de Tocqueville)

wrote:


I think for those people it's just more a matter of playing "The GPS Game".
Seeing what it might advise as a route, getting familiar with its quirks,
etc. Having fun with their cool toy.

Then again, having a good sense of direction is not automatically bestowed
on all people at birth. I am reminded of one friend in the distant past who
had no sense of direction at all. An exceptionally bright woman in all
areas of her life except for math and directions. She could literally get
on the road in front of where she lived, turn right at the next
intersection, drive 1 block, and not know how to get back. Seriously. It
wasn't a laughing matter either. I lost touch with her long ago, but now
that I'm thinking about it, I sure hope she latched onto GPS units as soon
as they became affordable and popular. I guess this would be no different
in analogy than someone who couldn't see without powerful glasses to assist
their legally-blind vision.



Finding that so many commercial POIs on it are wrong in my area, I have
never bothered to depend on it for that. But what I do frequently use it
for is on my mountain-bike. I live in a very rural area interlaced with
hundreds of small dirt-roads and trails. I like to mountain-bike to local
lakes for fishing, some 5 to 15 miles distant. (When the bike is fully
loaded with drinking supplies (hic!), food for the day, waders,
tackle-boxes, ice-blocks to later shatter and put on the bagged-fish,
rain-gear, extra clothes (coming home after midnight in cold rain is not
unusual), etc. that bike can weigh over 300lbs with me on it.), There's
many good fishing lakes within a semi-dedicated biking distance. It's a
real pain if I get turned around on some back-country trail or rubble-road
and find out I've gone 4 miles further than I needed to. Ever try to peddle
300 lbs. on a bike in soft, wash-boarded, gravel and sand? 1 mile in that
is like 5-8 miles on uphill pavement.

Though once I've learned the shortest or most interesting route (not always
the same) I have no need to use it to get to that particular fishing spot
again. In that case, it's back to playing "The GPS Game". Using it just for
fun and curiosity. I'm a big "kid" and I love toys. Can you imagine as a
child 40-50 years ago if someone put a "moving map" in your hand that
followed everywhere you went? Now that would be a blow-my-mind toy back
then. Hell, it still awes me sometimes with its accuracy. And switching
between different maps to see what each represents in an area, it's kind of
fun. Seeing if roads are missing on each map-set, or vice-versa.

There's one official county-road clearly marked on all mapping software
(Garmin, Delorme, etc.) nearby me that would take off 3 miles on a route to
a lake. But when going that way once to check it out it was badly overgrown
and seemed to abruptly end about 1/2 mile into the woods. No homes there,
no nuthin. Just a short two-wheel-ruts road with no apparent purpose. A
real head scratcher. Then one day on the way to that lake I got curious and
followed this "official" invisible road through the brush and woods. I had
to push my bike in many spots. It may have taken off 3 miles from my route,
but added over an hour of huffing & puffing to the trip. What a nice
"official" county-road. :-) Asking some locals about it later, it seems
that the person at the other end of this road owned the land alongside it.
(This non-existent "road" at the other end comes out on his driveway by a
barn near his yard.) He bulldozed and back-hoed the road into hills and
ravines about 40-50 years ago. He didn't like having that dirt-road there
so he made it go away. I guess nobody in the county ever challenged him or
ever felt the need to, even to this day. I kinda admire him for doing that.
I suspect others do, as well.

I have used the GPS a few times for geocaching, just to see what the buzz
was about that. But with it being so accurate there was no challenge. I
might rarely throw it in my pocket before getting in a friend's vehicle.
Then when on the road (as passenger) I might see if we are getting near any
local geocaches and ask them if they want to find one, if they've never
done that sort of thing before. A conversation/entertainment starter. Or
too, if a friend wants me to ride along to a place they've not been to
before I'll ask before leaving, "Want me to bring the GPS just in case?"
Out here, none of my friends have a real need for a GPS, they grew up in
the area with a fairly detailed mental-map.

and generally getting in the way of traffic.

God forbid these people should be doing this in a Prius.

On Sat, 21 Aug 2010 14:01:15 -0400, "Elmo P. Shagnasty"


A control-freak class-A personality, eh? (or just a troll?)

Do tell, just how does someone following directions on shorter, more
scenic, or more interesting back-road routes get in the way of your manic
road-rage impatience? Surely you will be doing emotional and mental battle
with all the other "MUST GET THERE NOW" class-A personalities on the more
popular road surfaces. Until you have a heart-attack or stroke in your ME
ME ME NOW NOW NOW entitlement superiority.


Gods forbid that you are even on any road.