Keeping the Windmill Alive - Your last trip? - February 2013

The Botanic Gardens in Washington, D.C.
During Jan & Feb it's great to visit rainforests, deserts, & several other habitats while the weather is cold & snowy.

Fred

so you think you've got talent?

My free trial of Garmin's "Safety Camera warnings" is about to expire on my Nuvi 40LM, so five bucks to try out POI Factory's Red light and speed camera locations was a bargain. Drove around (Montgomery County, MD) where cams are plentiful and found that a.) the POI Factory warnings seem to start sooner than the Garmin warnings, and b.) a certain red light camera that was not in the latest Garmin update was definitely in the POI Factory database. Living in an area that is inundated with "safety" cameras, I feel a bit more relaxed knowing I will be warned. I don't speed or run red lights, but there is always a worry when passing a camera whether I was paying too much attention to other drivers and not enough attention to my speedometer or where I was at when the light turned yellow. It takes two weeks to get a ticket in the mail in Montgomery County. That is too long to fret over a possible violation. I'd rather be ticketed by a cop (which has never happened in 44 years of driving).

Used my GPS heavily during a last-minute business trip last week to San Diego (specifically to Camp Pendleton).

...for cough syrup!

Happy Monday !!!

Greeneville, TN

Used it to find a bead store for my wife and then to find a real nice 50's diner .

Looking for other topics , coming soon

windmill

Went to Home Depot, then did some yard work (at home, not Home Depot)

Glad to see more speed limit indicators on my 855. It was a long time coming to Ontario and especially Ottawa. I find myself looking at the GPS to keep reminding me of which speed zone I'm currently in.

I use my Garmin nuvi Deuce Triple Nickel (2555) as soon as I get into my Car. It is Plugged into the Cigarette Lighter and ONLY comes ion when the Key is Turned on and it Automatically Turns off when I Shut Off the Engine. My GPS is as much a part of Driving, as is every other thing involved, such as Car Keys, Seat Belts, etc. I don't think I could get from Point A to Point B w/o my GPS. Its sort of like a Cell Phone. Once you get one and start using it, you wonder how you made it all those Yeras w.o it.

Going to visit a coworker who lives just across the bridge in Windsor. Been there a couple of times, but I am sure I wont be able to get to his house without Jill giving me some directions.

We are currently visiting the Phoenix area, and making good use of the Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives POI file to visit area restaurants.

A local tortilleria.

Generally worked well. Turn by turn directions was a real boon. Only odd thing was that at one point, we were trying to visit the Midway aircraft carrier/museum. The Maps app kept saying there was no route to get there! Never seen that error before. I wish I had taken better notes as to why, but using Google Maps worked instead. Weird...

Hitting the usual close to home spots. Glad to have a job to be able to commute back and forth to!

Use the GPS daily for the traffic feature. Nuvi 2895. Voice navigation is pretty good.

Back and forth to Erie using the 1450LMT. I know the way by heart and there's no traffic reception but I always have 1450 or zumo 665 on when in the car or on the Harley.

A pre-Valentines day dinner with the wife at the local Flemings.

cleared 24" of snow from my 600' driveway. probably took 6 hours of snowblowing fun. needless to say, I didn't need my GPS

go out for a three mile run today...

update the Nuvi and we're off on the next adventure!

3 Chinatowns in NYC

I will have an opportunity to go to the Minneapolis area (Bloomington) in a week and hope to find a good microbrew with my 3760. We will be by the Mall of America - Anyone have any good suggestions?

Went up to this weekend to the L.A. Boat Show. First stop was at my step-daughter's house in OC. I hadn't been there in a while so I looked up her address in Mapquest and noted the offramp right off the 5 freeway. Perfect.

But oops, as I approached the area, the Garmin directed me to a freeway headed west instead. Okay, I took it. That took me 1.5 miles past her house to an offramp where I then was instructed to double back.

Sheesh.

She told me no, that way is not the quickest or shortest.

I don't get all hung up over these GPS detours because getting there is the most important thing, but sheesh. This seems to happen an awful lot of the time.

Out of town visitors wanted to see the Truck Museum at the I-80 truck stop near Walcott IA. They have expanded the place since I last visited.
-90.781553 41.620953

Spending February in Florida. Missed the blizzard that hit Long Island.

Switched from using the Garmin to find the Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives in Phoenix to locating the casino Buffets this week.

Used the GPS to take our daughter to Legoland. Fun day!

was to Maryville, MO

was to Maryville, MO

and today is the makeup day. so Happy Tuesday.

...Dr. Vinnie Boombatz.

flew to Indy and needed to go to several places, of course, GPS was a key to having a low stress trip.

While driving locally, I didn't like the suggested routes on my Nuvi 40LM. For example, in Maryland, Rt. 29 parallels I-95. Speed limit on Rt. 29, 40mph, 50 mph and 55 mph. Speed limit on I-95 is 65 mph. So the default setting of fastest route means that Nuvi is trying hard to get me to drive over to I-95 when I'd prefer to stay on Rt.29. So I changed the default to Shortest route.
Then today, on a trip from the DC area to western MD, Nuvi was fine all the way up to Frederick on I-270, but when I got on I-70 westbound, it wanted me to exit and take some "back country" roads, or get off the Interstate and go through Hancock, because it was "shorter". By how much? Timewise, the shorter route that Nuvi planned added a half hour to a two hour trip.
I know the way, and stayed on the Interstate the whole trip, but was disappointed that there wasn't some sort of pop up option menu showing the different routes based on fastest vs. shortest and allow me to choose. Perhaps a more expensive unit has that function.
I guess from now on, my default will be Fastest.

It's an age old problem that no unit can resolve completely. That's why you are advised to always check the route planed by the unit as there may be many alternatives.

and had several trips around town.

KC

Going to watch my granddaughter in a dance competition this weekend.

Just took my eldest to a PADI class.

Haven't needed it for a while, just staying at home. Waiting for nicer weather.;

...just watching weekend golf on TV.

Used my iphone based Garmin USA app. Worked quite well.

Gray school in Old Saybrook CT

To Rochester NY then down to Philadelphia PA

Nuvi765T

Last new destination using GPS was Disney On Ice in Baltimore.

fiddling with red light/speed camera settings on my Nuvi

Just returned from a trip to the Buffalo area. Very enjoyable and my 250W worked great.