On the Map

Maps/Charts....Maps have roads marked on them, charts do not. Maps are used for navigation over land, charts for navigation over water. I really enjoy using and studying charts. My 11yr old son and I sat down and used parallel rules and dividers and charted out possible courses for our trip. We calculated time/distance/speed as we were underway. The GPS was used to as a device to show us a "picture" of what was going on and to verify our calculations. On one long run to Anegada, the approach was going to be a bit tricky. Anegada, unlike the normal volcanic mountains, is an Island formed by tectonics, and the elevation at its highest point is only 28 feet. (Anegada means "drowned land")  The Island is surrounded by reefs. There cannot be any slip ups. The entrance to the anchorage is very shallow and narrow. Our electronic chart plotter showed that I needed to be north by about 100 feet. For a second I questioned my calculations, ran down to the Nav. table and quickly re-charted the approach. I still showed my original course was correct. The chart plotter couldn't be wrong, but it sure looked like it. I traveled my calculations and arrived safely. If I had relied on the chart plotter, I would surely have hit the reef. When I talked with the local folks about the issue I was told that the elevation and isolation within the Caribbean Sea confuses the satellites that are sometimes low in the sky sending you the information. Later in the day, I checked again and the supplied electronic info was spot on. The next morning, it was off again by aprox. 100ft.

Lessoned learned: Keep you pencil very sharp, and move very, very slow.

This cold weather mamars, chupars, sorbers.    (Espanglish)

I work with plat maps on a daily basis and the need for them certainly isn't diminishing any time soon.  Sir Boyscout's day job is in the basement of the local university library, government docs to be exact.  He can print out all kinds of maps on their large plotter.  Here in our computer room we have a large scale map of sounding depths around the Hawaiian islands, a city guide map to Oahu, topographical maps of the mountains surrounding our valley and a few rather large road maps for national parks.

Maps make you feel like an explorer without ever having to leave your living room.  Atlas are infinitely cooler than globes and I still think globes are pretty darn cool.  Maps vs. GPS...its like the difference between a hand-written letter and an email, they both get the job done but just makes you feel a little something more.

In defense of GPS units, I head TomTom got Eddie Izzard to be the voice of one of their navigation programs.  That should be worth the cost of the unit alone..."And on the left you'll see a thing and then that other thing and then WATCH OUT FOR THE FLYING HIPPOS"

Thursday should be international buy a map, study it, and then stuff it in the trunk unfolded and get gloriously lost day.  I think it could be huge.

If Marco Polo had ever had GPS, he would have preferred and returned to Paper Maps and Charts ... There is no Adventure or Romance in electronic Gizmos and the Symbols used are not the least bit inspiring or daunting ... Surely, had Marco known about the Big Brother of his time, and GPS had been available, there would still have been an R2D2 voice warning that, The Be Dragons Beyond This Point .......

"Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything." --Charles Kuralt

GPS doesn't help things to that end. Much like the interstate highways, they're great for getting from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible with a minimum of fuss... at the expense of getting out and doing something interesting. Going on a really good road trip these days is a pretty simple matter... Avoid interstate highways unless there is no other choice, and only turn on the GPS when it's time to head back home.

GPS? We don't need no stinking GPS!

The trouble with my limited knowledge of GPS is that it doesn't know what you already know. And it ( and Mapquest, etc.) send/ sends you on all sorts of unnecessary routes that ignore our tendency to do more than one errand at a time, or drive by a favorite landmark, or  avoid Malfunction Junction at all costs. Sure, they may have some idea about traffic, but they very seldom know where the old XYZ used to be was before they tore it down.

 "Hey pal, how do I get to town from here?"

And he said "Well, just take a right where they're going to build that new shopping mall, go straight past where they're going to put in the freeway. Take a left at what's going to be the new sports center,  and keep going until you hit the place where they're thinking of building that drive in bank. You can't miss it."

Thanks to Laurie Anderson for those directions. 

J. Peterman,

Actually our GPS, a high end, gift, has lead us astray; so frequently taken alternative scenic routes that we checked to make sure we hadn't somehow programed that in, and nagged in an impatient voice; "Turn back, turn back now!"

If I get far enough off course, she'll recalculate and move on but not before objecting for quite awhile.

What I do really enjoy are the odd pronunciations of streets and towns and having it on in high detail as we drive around our own area becoming more aware of cross roads and such.

During a Valentine's Day blizzard, she took me right to the mailbox of a rural home and the only way I was able to continue from there was to follow the tracks left in the snow of the high, serpentine drive left by a dog the woman living there (evidently a genius) had sent out to meet me.

She got her delivery and I got homemade cookies. Good ones.

In today’s world, for me, there is room for both.

If I’m trying to find my way to a mountain trout stream, or an alternative path to a weekend/holiday retreat, I’ll use a collection of physical maps and studiously contemplate one or more potential routes.

One the other hand, if I’m trying to find my way to a commercial address, I won’t generally have the luxury of laying out maps and toying with alternative routes, more importantly I can’t afford “to get lost”. I’ll consult with a digital tool and ask its opinion, say thanks, and move on. I turn the damn navigation system’s voice off, I find I can still read and reason.

I do like digital maps, some of them have relief details, I can pretend to understand the lines and automatically convert, in my mind, to altitude, as if I didn’t know I was driving through the mountains, versus along the coast.

Having information on altitude allows me to entertain the use of all the fancy 4-wheel options I have available, which I never get to use, but seems a constructive alternative to worrying about whether I’m going to run out of gas before I get to the next town.

I like physical maps, of all kinds, for me they are art. I find, sometimes, I stick them on the wall, or have them laying about ... makes for good conversation if someone should drop by, we can debate the pros and cons of alternative routes, sometimes I actually learn 

I enjoy running “route scenarios” through my mind prior to a holiday departure. Oddly, I seldom take them with me on the actual trip. I prefer committing the route to memory, then sweating out “the recall” of these directions as I drive along.

Generally this method does not work that well and often provokes stimulating passenger to navigator conversation. Hell, it’s free entertainment and it’s suppose to be an adventure!

It’s all good.

It's strange to see a map of my hometown (Houston) after 20 years of navigating by 'Key Map' (the universal guide known so well here that salespeople and realtors will casually remark, 'Oh! You live in 410P?!  I'm going up near there this afternoon!'  And now, this old tradition is wilting...  I now look at Google Maps on my cellphone to find appointments and directions to appointments (it's a map, but not a paper map).  And the LEAST computer literate person on our team (Hey, can you show me again how to send a document with an email) -- well, he has gotten (and USES!) a dashboard mounted GPS.

I was first introduced to maps as a very small child.  Intrigued by the complex arrangement of shapes and colors, lines and words (I couldn't read yet), I asked my father what it was.  I can still remember the flood of wonder and joy when he said, 'It's like being up in an airplane and looking down at the world'.  Wow, what a Eureka moment!!!!!!!

Last week my youngest brother (now not very young) and I hiked in the Ozarks.  I carried printed out topo maps and wore my Garmin wrist mounted GPS (more for altitude and cardio-vascular monitoring than anything else).  A couple of the topo maps got wet in nighttime rain -- another story -- and the ink-jet maps 'ran'.  But my brother's simple black and white route map  and blue blazes on the trails kept us going.... I kept imagining the first explorers wandering about the hills with no maps, no GPS, no trail markers, no paths (except those left by animals), no idea of where water was to be found, and no clear endpoint to their travels....Geez!

Go ahead, call me a Luddite....I avoid GPS type gizmos like the plague.  As a kid, we always had the National Geo's map on the wall and one of our favorite games was to pick a remote place and see if anyone could find it.  On one of our million interminable car trips, I could always entertain myself by reading maps.  I love maps. I love folding them.  I love reading the odd names of towns...especially in England.  Berwick-upon-Tweed?  Take me there please!!

My daughter recently announced that we needed a GPS.  My reply was that I already had that.  Where, she asked.  My brain and a map.

I have always loved paper maps (and have shoeboxes full of maps I've accumulated over the years from all over the world) -- BUT ---

I've become a Google Maps and Google Earth addict.... And now we have Street View!

There was the bizarre moment only recently when I showed some folks in my office my son's house in Kawasaki, Japan, and pointed out the yellow and red plastic toy car in their carport, next to the 'family bicycle'.  And then I took them around in a circle to see the pre-school across the street with a mom dropping her kid off for the day.... Now, there are NO maps (other than our incredible electronic ones) that can carry one 7,000 miles away and do THAT.

I find it a bit strange when I read one of my 19th century G.A. Henty historical novels (inherited from my father), carefully turning the 80-100 year old pages to 'keep them going' a bit longer -- and then going to Google Earth to trace the action.  Even weirder: looking at embedded Panoramio photos of castles, views, battlefields, etc described by Henty a century ago -- and which often go back 200, 300, or 400 years before him!

I think the motto of our century (at least until the whole thing blows up like our economy) should be 'Time and Space in A Blender!'  Amazing how primitive bipeds with obsolete brains have erected such a strange mental superstructure on such primitive 'wetware'

My husband and I traveled all over the western and southern parts of the USA a few years ago (put 11,000 miles on the car in 2 1/2 months).  Without our best friend, our road atlas, we would have gotten lost so many times.  I've never used a GPS but have ridden in my sister's car and listened to it tell her she's going the wrong way because it doesn't like the shortcuts she knows about her own hometown.  It just seems much better to have a paper map, even Mapquest printouts and their maps.  My husband is an excellent map reader so during our travels and since, we have started a system--I drive into the big cities and he reads the maps and road signs and tells me where to turn.  We rarely make a wrong turn any more (as we did when I would try to read the maps).

Yes. Yes. I admit to telling the always-calm female voice emanating from my car's GPS unit that she's just going to have to deal with it and recalculate the route because I have no intention of going her way!

While the GPS certainly has its uses, I don't feel it can replace a good map. The GPS never gives me a true sense of where I'm at, or where I am going, in relation to anything. Even after a few days in a new area, if I've only relied on the GPS to take me around, then I'm lost once the electronic navigation is shut off. Maps require thinking and making cognitive connections to your environment.

I use maps constantly.

At work, maps provide me with historical facts that you just can't get anywhere else. They can furnish clues to where people once lived and why. Comparing old maps to new, supplies one with valuable information as to how places have changed over time. Migration/travel/trade routes become more distinct and understandable when visualized on a map. Property maps help to distinguish one person from another. Battlefield maps and combat mission maps allow one to obtain a clearer picture of historical events.

At play, maps not only get me from one place to another, but they add so much to the trip. They suggest places to explore, new sites to see, and give many fascinating facts that would be difficult to find elsewhere. In orienteering, maps are made specifically for the sport. Different colors designate types of terrain. Symbols represent specific features, both nature-made and man-made. Contour lines give you valuable information about elevation. (Do I go over that hill or around it?)

A GPS tends to take you from point A to point B in the shortest, most direct and efficient way. We'd miss so much along our way without the challenge and sheer fun of picking the best route for ourselves.

Doc,

Geez, I had forgotten all about Google Earth which I love and use often.

If you check out Stuyvesant Square, in Manhattan, it is possible to zoom in on the statue of Peg-leg Peter himself.

It's an easy walk from our daughter's apartment and I spend a lot of time there in the spring and fall. Interesting people and good stories.

Thanks for the reminder.

Forgot to mention that the heartwarming sign I use as an avatar hangs on the wrought iron fence in the square.

maggy21360,

Welcome. What a fantastic road trip that must have been!

I am an old pilot and learned how to fly using dead reckoning and intercepting AM radio signals on my ADF.  I would trianglate signals from different stations and put my finger on my current position on the map. I would then adjust my heading to fly a compas bearing to a station.  Since about  30 years ago computers and auto pilot does all that for you.  I have flown with pilots that become fearful when asked to turn off the auto pilot.  Today Garmins and Tom Toms are doing the thinking for our drivers.  Pretty soon we can just talk on the phone while our cars autopilot takes us to our destination.  Except for in California where the government has won control of your lives.  We can even imagine when you can send your car to the school to pick up your kids.  

When you contemplate the day when computers take over (Singularity)also throw in to the mix how many gadgets you have in your closet that failed to work soon after you purchased it, or computers that are no longer capable of booting up. I live at the end a cul-de-sac that is about a 1/4 mile long.  About once a month I have to help a truck drive get turned around as he discovers that mapquest send him down the wrong route.

Just how near is the Singularity?  Check out my an overview on an optimistic outlook from a technical standpoint, but clearly misses on the joys of figuring out where you are all by your self.  The book is the Singularity is Near.  http://cigarroomofbooks.blogspot.com/2008/01/singularity-is-near-by-ray-kurzweil.html.>

I personally need the paper maps. I get lost in my hometown let alone another city. This October on the way up to Bayfields Applefest my GF & I took the backroads & the "long way" there. We consulted a paper map, decided that we wanted to visit the St. Croix Fishing rod Factory in Park Falls, WI.  If we would have tried to use a GPS it would have taken us an extra hour + to get there. By using the paper map & the rural roads we saved ourselves gas & time.  

A few years ago I went to Ft. Hood in Kileen Tx to visit a friend My cousin was living in Tyler TX & I decided to drive up there to see him also. He told me to mapquest for the directions to Tyler. The Mapquest directions took me through Dallas & up. It was about a 4.5 hour drive. He couldn't figure out what was taking us SO long to get there not knowing that the Mapquest had sent us that way.  Going back to Kileen was easier as he told us the back roads to take & gave us a map we saved quite a bit of time going back & not having to go through the Dallas area.

 I generally leave all maps home. I love getting lost, and often genuinely do. But I love maps, aesthetically, for what they represent. And I always have one buried in the glove box just in case.

This is how I like my maps:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_gallery_16&listing_id=14603232

My brother travels for work and he refers to Hertz's "Neverlost" navigation system as "Everlost" because it is never right.

All the GPS talk reminds me of the Ridley Scott film "A Good Year", as much as Russell Crowe annoys me, it was a very funny movie.  One of my favorite parts is a teeny rental car he has to drive and the nav system is rude to him.  Its worth the price of rent to watch a computer take the piss out of RC's character.

P.S.

If you're backpacking through Europe and find yourself in need of a map, ask a German kid. They're likely to have ten of any given local. Topographical, pre-war, post-war, population . . . 

Paul Murphy,

You're right about Mapquest frequently being wrong.

There are two ways for us to get out of town: Drive to the end of the street and turn right or turn left and yet Mapquest has almost never begun a routing that simply.

On one occaision, the start to a trip was so insanely out of the way that I actually took it just to prove the point to my passengers. Haven't relied on it since.

My favorite kind of map is the ones that show political boundries.  Speaking of Europe, every year (or decade) represents a new chapter in European History.  Just the boundary lines sends the head in a world of wondering what happened.  Gernamy from pre Bismark through Hitler are good examples.  There have been a few boundary changes since...in fact Europe has expanded.

MissIve,

What a beautiful collage image! Thanks. I'll be able to use that idea.

Paul Murphy,

I could not connect to that site.

My father, a lover of maps, stopped over last night to say goodbye before he heads to Winner, South Dakota for partridge hunting season with the guys.

Me: Gonna stop in at Wall Drug for some free ice water?

Dad: Too outta the way.

Me: Too bad.

Dad: (pulling out iPhone) Lemme check.

I figured he was pulling up Mapquest to type in the two locations. But he pulled up an actual topographical map.

Dad: See. That brown area is the Badlands. Too far away.

Me: (nodding as if I knew what the hell he was talking about) Right. No, you're right. Too far.

I guess if you love maps, you'll find a way to keep them with you, no matter how times change. 

I think maps have more appeal to those of the "getting there is half the fun" school of thought.  Others just want to get where they are going as quickly and easily as possible, and for them GPS is the answer.  I keep both at hand, but often like to use neither and just wander in the general direction of where I need to end up and see what adventures I can find along the way.

Kindlee,

I too was inspired by Miss Ives collage image.  I love playing/working with photos and graphic software!

Miss Ive,

Thanks for the above.

It took me years to develop the skills required to unfold, interpret, and then properly refold all manner and sizes of maps while driving with my knees and not slowing down. One cannot just put a skill like that on a shelf to collect dust!

Besides, whenever I drive with a GPS I ‘m always looking to see if the little car on the screen is keeping up with me and that's more distracting than talking on a cell phone. Sometimes I'll put my turn signals on just to fake it out.

And everybody knows you always turn left at the house where the three legged dog without a tail chases your car for a hundred yards or so.

Other than folding, the only problem I have with maps is that, as I am getting older, the font, apparently, is getting smaller.

MissIve,
I don't remember ever needing a map to find Wall Drug. You just follow the billboards!

Kindlee and PeterLake,

First, OMG the BILL BOARDS! Make them STOP. The seventeen-year-old Miss Ive use to say, from the back seat, with her forehead smashed against the window, "REALLY? Is this REALLY the way to Wall Drug. Because the first 72 signs were a bit misleading. REALLY?"  I have a picture of said seventeen-year-old with arms crossed, leaning against a cigar store indian, giving the camera THE LOOK. Thanks for that flashback, Kindlee!

Second, you are both welcome for the link. Thank the artist. I like these, too.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_gallery_1&listing_id=13351671

And as far as the folding of the map, I almost forgot the most important purpose maps use to serve for me in my single days as adventurer.

The dramatic, not-so-subtle, UNfolding of the map, when in close proximity to a handsome native. The classic S.O.S. Never fails. 

my favorite GPS instruction, " make a legal u turn whenever possible" . The last trip with my trusted GPS guiding me to the waterfront in Wilmington, NC., ended at a concrete traffic barrier, telling me "you have arrived". Meanwhile the crew was diligently waiting on me at the dock, to ferry them back to Charleston. By the time I stumbled on the correct location, they had finished off the better part of a gallon of rum. I was glad I did not get stopped on the way home as the fumes from my four snoring compadres was enough to cause a reaction to a breathylizer....

My father was the grand master of misdirection. He could always find something on the opposite side of the road to divert our attention away from the Dairy Queens with the giant soft-serve cones on top.

Geography and Humor:  Some folks who don't use maps really should!  (Yep, me too). 

I had a customer who told me of a discussion she had with a neighbor, telling her how expensive it was going to be to fly to Europe on their vacation... The neighbor lady chimed in, 'Well, why don't you just drive?

And then there was the time I decided to take a shortcut (don't we ALL have stories starting that way!!)... From Houston to Ruston, Louisiana, is normally a 5.5 hour, 320 mile trip. Ah, but I decided to 'short cut' through Nactchitoches, Louisiana.  Crossing the first bridge, things looked fine, but first the road went from two lanes with a line to two lanes without a line, to a narrower road without a line.... Well, you get the idea (at least I didn't pursue my adventure to whatever dirt road lay ahead!).  Turn around....  Got back into town and asked for directions (NOT something that comes naturally to any male!).  'Well, don't take the next bridge... Just keep going until you get to the long bridge.'  I followed his instructions, and sure enough, crossed a long and very modern bridge and got to my brother's house (in about seven hours total drive time.)  I explained the delay and my brother broke the bittersweet news to me...  'Uh, it's not the long bridge.... It's the Long Bridge -- named after Governor Huey Long'.  I still have visions of wandering about central Louisiana well after dark.  (What if the Long Bridge had been insignificant, short and unimpressive?  I shudder!)

I used to work with the Forest Service, back in high school, on the summer trail crews. We'd hike in to the mountains west of Boulder, Colorado and clear trails for four days, sleeping outside. I loved it. And our maps! I had a job one summer, too, working with NOAA's office of terrestrial geophysics, and we had an enormous library of maps - the Soviet ones were my favorite, studying Russian at the time as I was. I could spend hours just poring over them, memorizing the details.

I have a really fancy marine/automotive GPS unit now. I set the voice to Female British, and I call her Maggie. For sailing, she's nice, but not essential. For driving in southern California, though, I would be in deep doo-doo without Maggie. Driving here is so mind-numbingly hideous that when I'm behind the wheel I have to send the greater portion of my thinking mind away to its Special Place. Without Maggie barking out my directions to me, I would good and truly just keep driving until I found myself surrounded by green meadows and trees. Maggie keeps me from wandering off into the woods, lovely dark and deep though they are.

I have a giant map of Wyoming, where I met my sweetie almost decades ago, hanging in the upstairs hall. I recommend the guys (in the unisex sense of the word) that I got it from as an excellent source of truly gobsmacking cartography:

http://www.ravenmaps.com/

When sailing, it's nice to have a little bit of technology to assist with the otherwise unnecessary bit of knowing where I am. Once I'm on the water, I actually don't care too much about my location. Just being water-borne is enough. This makes me highly disrespectful of other people's schedules, though, so it's a good thing I don't have to work for a living on the water.

The first ever book sale for my GF's store that I went to was the Skokie IL one ~ A HUGE Event that opened at 5pm & ended at 12am  ~ Since 4 hours really isn't that long of a drive we made it an all day trip ~ What we didn't count on was being rerouted in an area that neither of new at 1AM due to accident.  We drove around & around that dang area for hours, until GF said I think I may have an atlas soenmwhere in the back of the van. Now every time I see the Exit for Sheridan Road I seem to have flashbacks.....  Now neither of us ever go anywhere without a map within a reachable area the car...    

Welcome, maggy and Paul!

My den is papered with maps. Mostly from National Geographic (their Ireland ROCKS), but they're all just too darn cool. I journey all round the world, I can get lost in a map the way I do with a dictionary. I hate the GPS unless I want efficiency, which I almost never do. Google Earth, however, with Street View, is awesome in the real sense of the word. One truly can develop a variant of the God Complex, using it. Or not. Anyway, it's fun. But, the best thing about traveling is the side trips, the getting lost and finding something cool, like a dairy queen in the shape of a gigantic orange (Redfield AR), or huge dinosaurs made of concrete or welded scraps. And I thought they were extinct! There are not many McD's or Wendy's or whatevers on backroads. Blue Plate Specials or Mom"s Eats are better.

Whenever I go sailing I take a Samoan...

To be honest...most of the time my loving, very smart husband can't find his way out of a bucket when it comes to directions.  Hence, the GPS.  He took offense and refuses to ride in my new car.  He also made the statement (guys you will like this one) that one woman telling him where to go is enough! Meaning me, of course.  And yes, the darned thing does give wrong directions.  So..it's back to the good old AAA trip tix for me and my husband.  They don't talk back to him!  Besides, we never drive too far from home anyway.  If we go that far it's by air, leaving the driving to the pilots.  My husband made the comment when we were flying to Hawaii that the pilots don't allow passengers in the cockpit.  Ha! Ha!  I did get him back when a friend of ours was flying his jet to Florida and we hitched a ride.  He let me help fly the plane.  Hmmmmmm, we sort of leaned to the right a couple of times.  That was the last time he has offered to let me fly the plane, darnit!     

And then there are NAUTICAL charts...  My sea kayaking days are behind me (unless I retire, heh, heh), but it's a bit weird having a laminated nautical chart strapped across the bulkhead, head about two feet above sea/bay-level, with a cross-swell and a stiff wind blowing. 

Since you often can't see the coast/shoreline ahead (curvature of the earth, you know..) and since you need to 'point your boat' (heh, heh) at an angle to go in a straight line, it makes the process of dead reckoning very, very, very interesting!  It is sort of cool when some hidden 'thing' pops up over the horizon (a somewhat slow process since one paddles at about two miles per hour) and you realize you 'figured it out' right.

Oh, it is NOT a good idea to accidentally paddle in a shipping lane.  Those oil tankers don't pay much attention to 14-foot craft with a 24 inch beam that draw six inches.  And don't even dream of hailing them for 'directions'!  (Squish!)

Olivia I'm with you, mom&pop diners are much better than a box restaurant.  I also have a theory that if the restaurant has a giant statue of an animal...the food is even better, especially with bbq joints.

Kindlee, 

Sorry it took so long to get back had work work to do.  I'll paste teh link here again

 http://cigarroomofbooks.blogspot.com/2008/01/singularity-is-near-by-ray-kurzweil.html

 or do a keyword search for cigarroomofbooks 

Olivia when you say you travel around the world does that mean litterally travel or is you body stuck in your den while your mind checks out?

Paul Murphy,

Thank you. The first thing that caught my eye was "Seven Pillars of Wisdom", currently in my stack of books to be read. I will have to explore cigarroomofbooks more fully, as soon as time permits. Sometimes, I find work can be such an interference.

Paul-a bit of both, but lately it's just map travel...

The best parts about maps are tracing the roads with your finger. You can't do that on GPS systems because then you either wind up zooming out, zooming in, scrolling, or at the very least smudging the screen. The worst parts about maps are trying to fold them back up, because no matter how hard you pay attention to unfolding them, you never get the folded back the right way.

I love to draw maps. Usually places that don't exist. Sometimes I create new places and I put them on existing maps. For example, at 51.95883N, 0.812125E, I created an entire town with a population of about 30 people, a bar, and a farm. This location, unfortunately, in real life, is a field in England.

When we were on our USA trip, we drove from Sioux Falls, SD to Rapid City, SD.  We were so fed up with the Wall Drug innumerable billboards we decided to avoid the place like the plague.  So their money spent on billboards was completely wasted on us.  If they had just put up a few as we neared the area, we probably would have checked it out.

TOATD ~ Is that were all us PE er's are suppose to meet up? Just give me the date & time & make sure that Bar is Open :)  

nachista-Must rent 'A Good Year'. Anytime anyone or anything can take the mickey out of RC, I'm there. This poser needs all the stick he can get.

maggy-wall drug (noncaps intentional) is a BLIGHT. Billboards are all just horrible.

Pam-After Seven Pillars of Wisdom, I suggest Travels in Arabia Deserta, by Charles Doughty. It is written, o long-lost twin, that Lawrence got a good bit of 'inspiration', shall we say, at Doughty's feet. Then there's Arabian Sands and The Last Nomad by Wilfred Thesiger. Lots of good reading, rather working backwards and forwards but. I believe the timeline would be Doughty, Lawrence, Thesiger.

Great stuff.

Olivia,

Thank you for the guiding suggestions. My 'to be read' pile has grown immensely since arriving at this site. I love it!

OMG, I must be about 200 books behind about now...

Olivia/Kindlee, 

I will add those to my list.  I just finished a book called Churchills Folly that debunks Sir Lawerance.  80 years later who am I to say.  I have a stack about seven feet tall on the Middle East.  Guess when it was that I took interest.

Next on my list is Shahnameh.  Apparently if you are Iranian you've read it.  Kind of like Eugine Onegin, if you are Russian you've memorized it. 

On travel and maps, I have a hobbie to collect sand from all the beaches around the world.  I store each sample in watter bottles from that country in its native labeling.  One day I wll mape a map with the sands of the world.

In between travels, with so many interesting things to read, it's impossible to be bored.

>>> Pam-After Seven Pillars of Wisdom, I suggest Travels in Arabia Deserta, by Charles Doughty. -- Olivia <<<

I've read Doughty's 'Travels in Arabia Deserta' and Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom'.   Both are 'ok', BUT if you really want a good read, beg, borrow or steal a copy of Sir Richard Francis Burton's 'Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah' (which has been republished and reprinted with a number of other closely related names).  If you get desperate, it's available from Project Gutenburg at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4657  .

If by some horrible trick of fate you are not familiar with Sir Richard, here's a good introduction to one of the 19th century's most fascinating individuals!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton

If anyone DOES choose to follow up and get the 'Pilgrimage', a piece of advice:  As you read, set up a Word .doc and create a glossary of the Arabic terms and their English equivalents.  It will run dozens of pages if you read the entire narrative -- but it will provide a work of permanent reference value when studying the Middle East. 

Incidentally, in case the name Sir Richard Francis Burton rings a faint bell, yes, he was involved in some begatting resulting in an offspring named Richard Burton, actor.  

A final offering:  a photo of Sir Richard Francis Burton's tomb in England.... http://rodneyorpheus.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/image_007.jpg

Thank you very much, Doc Nolan.

Pam

How about them OS maps in the UK?

Ordnance Survey.

egggcellent. 

Willie, I now have a strong craving for an egg salad sandwich.

egg salad with crispy lettuce, pickle slices on the softest, spongiest non-whole wheat-bread in the universe with a glass of coke and crushed ice........ heaven, I'm in heaven, And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak;

Peter, you're so easy...

easy, but not necessarily inexpensive ;-)

Being a geography major I have always loved paper maps and feel they are much more useful than a GPS Nav., but recently I have come across a problem.  I am trying to do some research on the subject as I have to conduct a thesis proposal on GPS Nav and paper maps in correlation to travel time.  I haven't found anything particularly useful on the subject and was wondering if anyone else had. From my experience during long trips I would rather have a paper map. When I travel in packs of cars during long trips I have found that the cars using paper maps actually get to the destination faster than the people using GPS.  I was also wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to test this seeing as we are all map lovers here.   

Anybody winds up in Lake Arrowhead anytime soon, I'll make them the best egg salad sandwich in the world, from eggs that got laid (woo hoo!) in the few days before the salad was made.  Freshest eggs on the planet, pure mountain grown from my personal forest poultry.

My, that was alliterative.

Wonderlust, I think your research idea is a perfect venue for agent-based computer modeling.   One group of agents can be "maps" and the other "GPS".  I'd be interesting in knowing how it turned out!

PeterLake,

Do you really dance cheek-to-cheek with egg salad sandwiches? It sounds a little messy.

Wonderlust,

Welcome. Your thesis proposal is intriguing. I don't have any suggestions but I, too, would love to hear what you come up with and how it all turns out.

Welcome, Wonderlust.

Peter and Jonathan, I can make you the cheapest, trashiest egggg salaaaad mmmm sandwich you ever put your mouth on, honey babies. Yeah, inexpensive, but quality nonetheless.

*hooting laughing, trying not to snort*

Kindlee,
I wouldn't dance with one but I'd sure sing and dance for one!

When I was a little guy, my mother would take me on the EL /Subway downtown to see my orthopedic surgeon at least twice a month from when I was about three until I was about eleven years old. After the appointment we'd walk a few blocks to a corner Walgreen on State Street that had both a soda fountain/lunch counter upstairs and a luncheon Automat downstairs that had the best egg salad in Chicago.

Enough reminiscing for one day. Back to the GPS vs. Maps debate. Another major benefit of Maps, and therefore Globes, is they are truly a valid art form. How many scenes will never be filmed that involve the spinning of a Globe?

Now that I stumbled back to reminiscing, it seemed like all of my favorite adventure films began with a mysterious dotted line route being traced across a map, often with the shadow of an airplane for added effect. Technology seems to be slowly but surely strangling off romance from film (except for "You Got Mail.)

I do have GPS on my rowing maching which is waiting impatiently for me as I type.  

[Well done, Olivia, now there's hard cider on my screen...]

Jonathan,

What should I find in my mailbox just moments after reading your post today but a Raven Map catalog.

I've got powers.

Olivia,

I there is one food you don't want to eat and then snort, it's gotta be egg salad.  But then again, I'd bet anything looks good on you.

Gotta go get a loaf of Wonderbread.  I'd better check the expiration date on the eggs too; can't remember if they were brown when I bought them.

let me start from the beginning, If ....

Chatting with a friend earlier today re; today's topic, he told about an auction at the boarding school he had attended.

It went on for hours with no excitement and very little money made until the oversized pull-down map from the classroom of Doc Foley came up.

It had two things going for it: Every student and every class for almost fifty years had stood before it on picture day to be photographed. The only acceptable excuse for absence on picture day having been a death in the family... your own.

Secondly, there was dot-dot-dotted upon the map a highly suggestive and hypothetical "caravan route" that, having seen his drawn representation of it, would I am sure, at that age, have stirred interest in exploration of some sort.

It brought thousands.

Our car has btw that extra chip that homes in on the scent of cooking cabbage and signs flashing- E-A-T-S

I was always a little suspicious of Raven Maps and Images, as in

Thou  shalt not make unto thee any (g)raven images...  

Oh, that's a standing ovation worthy bit of punmanship, sir.

you are too kind.

Pete n Jon-thanks for the kind words!

William-what are you raven about? Maps, is it? Just remember how the crow flies...

I wondered where ExPat had gone and this morning I found him on Google! It's Rene Magritte's 110th birthday. (my kingdom for diacritical marks) I imagine he used Google Maps to get there, instead of paper or GPS. It was quite nice to see him again, though we do miss his red apple here.

I love paper maps and I use them. Alot of GPS doesn't have all the little streets on it. In the off the beaten path places I go

It was trying to re-fold the damned things that killed the paper maps

As a person who has invested much of his life in both paper and digital maps, each has a value. Like books, paper maps have a reality and a relationship to people.The digital product has an immediacy and fungibility that makes it very appealing (perhaps more so for maps than books).