If you haven’t gotten a GPS for your car yet you don’t know what you are missing. Here is a link to a review of the Garmin model if you are in the market for one. Link to Geek Gadget: Garmin nüvi GPS navigator | KnoxViews
I happen to use Microsoft Streets & Maps 2006 with the included GPS receiver and it works great. But talking about the different systems isn’t where I want to go with this article. Instead let me tell you why you need one if you do any traveling in your car.
You will go places that you might not ever see otherwise. Remember in the cartoon movie CARS where the that little town got forgotten when the Interstate got built? Well with a GPS you might just find yourself traveling through those little towns again and you might even save some time.
Last Summer we took a trip from Baton Rouge to North Carolina for the family reunion held every summer at Emerald Isle. My wife and I have gotten lost on every major trip we have taken…not this time. This time it was uncanny as the I called out turns like some mad navigator in a Rally based on the advice of my laptop running Streets and Maps. We never took a wrong turn the entire trip. But there was something else that made it incredible…
We saw places that we might never have seen had we stuck with the Interstate Systems. See most of us use the interstate systems because of their ease of use we never consider that they might not be the shortest route between two places. And prior to the advent of GPS even if we did know there was a shorter route we might not have used it since getting lost in the smaller highways was such a pain in the ass. Now that’s all behind us.
It was most evident on the way back from North Carolina where we had some folks following us back to Sandestin for the second part of our vacation. We went zipping through some of the most picturesque areas of North Carolina that you can imagine or maybe you can’t if you have been traveling the interstates. At times we were flying down 2 lane country highways completely at ease and seeing sights I guarantee you we would not have seen otherwise. All the while I am calling out turns and veers and splits in the road like some famous European Rally Star.
Well we stopped for lunch and the folks following us were dumbfounded. The driver was especially Luddite like and he simply could not accept that we actually knew where we were going. It was kinda funny. We made the best time we had ever made on that trip and saw sights we would have never seen.
Now we are planning a trip to Vegas to see the Mom…weeeeeee. Gonna be some fun. Cannot wait. 22 hour driving time…time for a Blues Brother quote Elwood : It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
Jake 0: Hit it.
YEA BABEE!
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