Keeping the Windmill Alive - Where was your last trip with your GPS?

This was my first trip using my nuvi 200, and I'm really impressed. Actually our destination was Terrell, Tx. Anybody driving the freeways in Dallas knows what thats like, and I was pulling a 20' stock trailer. Exits can come at anytime and any direction, left or right, I managed to make it through that mess with little trouble.
The biggest draw back was that your just listening to a voice and you never really see where you've been. I went to the local Wal-mart which was about 9 miles and a dozen turns, It got me there perfect, but when I came out to return home, much to my horror I was greeted with Acquiring Satellite Signal for about 10min.When it did get the satellite it rerouted me a different way. I would suggest that everyone carry a map, just in case

I visited my son and his family on Saturday who lives west of the Twin Cities. I was impressed with my Nuvi 750 except that we went off-road for about 10 miles. We followed 212 west of Minneapolis and the road wasn't there. So today I forwarded a note to the mapping company to make an update. They added a new bypass around a few towns and the 2009 map still doesn't have it correct.

First time on a long trip. LOVED IT!! Set the destination for the hotel and followed GPS instructions through some beautiful views of the Hill Country. Sure beat the interstate. Plus, used the Rest Area Combo file with alerts - wonderful!!

these sorts of trips used to be relegated to Google maps...

I wonder how long before my GPS pays for itself in ink and paper??

And a nod to the POI creators here...

I typed in "Wawa" to find the closest one to me (on the Garmin w/2009 maps) didn't find nearly as many as I knew existed. A quick trip to the POI factory hooked me right up. Same thing with super-Walmart.

Great stuff.

Thanks all!

Q

Last trip with the nuvi was to riverside IL for the last carshow of the year. (Car goes into storage on Oct 5th).

With geepeeex, I was able to set an exact long/lat to the entrance for show.

Even leaving the show and having to be directed by the local police to take an odd road, the nuvi put me back on track for the trip home.

BTW... The silly car went out with bang and took first in its class!
Pic :
http://www.doodnet.com/images/riverside2.jpg

We have a wedding to attend in SF, CA. Taking the Nuvi. Can leave home without it!

Took my new (about 4 days old) Nuvi 750 from
Stevens Point, WI to the George Mead Wildlife Center, 20 miles or so. Used the GO and it did a fine job. No stutter troubles, but alerted for turns about .2 miles or sometimes maybe a little shorter. Not driving real fast since there a lot of country winding roads and turns. Told it to take me home the shortest route, that was fun, back winding roads along the river that I never would of found, fall color starting which made it pleasant. It re-calculated about twice for very short runs.
All in all I was very pleased with its operation.
I am probably too new with it to notice any real trouble at this point.
I swear though its saying "turn on county Rude" vs County Road. American English Jill.

Nuvi 750 Version 4.10

The nuvi really messes with some names of roads, I have to laugh at some of them, if you ever use a road with a drive attatched to it you will find out that your going to the DR wether you like it or not, DR for doctor.

Sladobruk,

How did you do this? Did you keep pressing the detour button or just drive down different roads allowing it to recalculate. We have been looking for a cool method to navigate during disaster zones.

Maybe its a 750 thing, my 750 always says Drive.
Since we live on a DR I get to check American Jill out quite a bit.
I prefer the 2D map and have version 4.10 and only one time has it been completely out of sync with a turn. I like others awaiting Ver 4.2x or whatever it will be.

Well "My Friend Jack" and I are going to Grand Junction, Co this week to see my new Great Granddaughter. Then will come back to So. Cal. and jack and I will help my son move to Florida in November. He will be just down the beach from Cape Cavernal and NASA. Now maybe I can observe the launch of a space Shuttle-- told him I would buy the beer. Ha Ha

Actually our last trip was to MD for their Ren Faire last year, we used MS Streets and Trips on a laptop with a bluetooth GPS.

It was ok, but having to have the laptop up front the whole time was a real pain.

So for this year's annual trip, I got a Garmin Nuvi 680 and we're going to try that out, still will have the laptop, but maybe it can be used for more than just navigation

Fort Totten in NY and avoided a red light camera.

Nuvi360

Boston, Mass

Nuvi360

On the way down, I forced the GPS to take Ridge Ave, Lehigh Ave, Germantown Ave, Dauphin St., etc to get to Fishtown in Philly. (The GPS did fine except it didn't know about a one block long playground that it wanted us to go through!) It took us one hour and thirty minutes for the trip down (traffic wasn't an issue). On the way home, I let the GPS pick the entire route and it chose Aramingo, I-95 S, across 676 (Vine Street expressway), up Schuylkill Expressway, I-476 N, Northeast Extension, etc. The route was three miles longer but only took one hour and ten minutes. Got a new route when the Schuylkill/676/I-95 isn't backed up.

Tim

Went down to Puerto Rico for a work thing. My 350 got us where we needed to go, and back.

We went to Fort Lauderdale and marine land. It was very useful to find places to eat and shop. The traffic receiver was also a great option to have.

Out to Mohegan Sun.

Last month I played a couple of mountain golf courses here in Colorado. Used the stock POI database and was directed straight to the parking lot both times. Definitely love my Nuvi.

to Benicia CA for sushi. Well worth the 40 minutes drive. If you are in the North Cal area and enjoy sushi, this is one place you don't want to miss. The wait for a table can be long but if you don't mind sitting at the sushi bar, you will get a seat pretty quickly.

Matsuri Japanese Restaurant
920 1st St # 102
Benicia, CA 94510
(707) 747-1585

Just an update, we're here and the Garmin was great, although there was a point on the 15 (part of the new I99) where it thought we were off-roading, but were on the actual highway

The wife, enjoyed the laptop-less drive and we shaved almost 30 minutes off the drive too, since I was able to use the garmin to see my actual mph, instead of guessing off my kph speedometer.

We'll be attending the Maryland Ren faire ( http://www.rennfest.com/ ) for the next two weeks. If any of you are around here and want to drop me a line, please do.

I chatted with a friend last week who shared a comical Garmin story. It was their first use of the GPSr and they figured they'd set it to "shorter distance" vs. "faster time".

Needless to say, that journey (from Tampa to central MA) had them on the scenic route and it took them an extra day to get home!

and it helps but some of the routes it take are very different from what I have tried and find true. I drive tour bus from March thru December and then charters the rest. I do cross country trips that go from NYC to LA. I've always used Garmin. I still think they have the best.

I checked what both the short and fast routes looked like, I'm thinking of returning my 680 and getting the 770 or 880 model, since they having 10 route points, and the 680 doesn't.

Although I did figure out how to put in one waypoint of a sort so that I got off the I90 at Batavia and save ourselves 30 minutes (I use MS Streets and Trips to plan out my trips normally and the Garmin did a pretty good job mimicking it )

Went to KC and Seattle these past few weeks...works great!!

My wife and I drove coast-to-coast using the 200. I had spent a lot of time planning the trip using Map Point and Street Atlas so we had each days run pretty well laid out in advance.

The Nuvi kept us informed of the necessary PS (potty stops) and helped us find the nightly stops and occasional eating place. 4 1/2 days out on one route and 4 1/2 days back on another and the Nuvi with the Combined Rest Stops, Bob Evans, Cracker Barrel POIs worked just great. Just like AMEX - Don't leave home without it!

US30 through PA is a great drive. We have driven it several times from Gettysburg through to Pittsburgh and back. The Laurel Highlands should be coming into their fall color soon - time for some "leaf peeping."

I used my GPS to go to school. Because sometimes I daydream and miss my exit

to find a gas station with cheaper gas.

Karen did not disappoint, even though she talks funny.

Across S. MN, into SW WI. to gaze at the peak fall colors.

First stop: St. Charles, MN - Breakfast, and good coffee at (N43.97181 W92.07092) - Cabin Coffee - the first franchise store of a 'mom & pop' coffee place in my home town.

Then - on to Old Country Cheese Factory, rural Cashton, WI - (N43.71028 W90.72146) - it's in Wisconsin's Amish Country - on the winding roads to get there, one is likely to encounter horse drawn carriages, and wagons - and this time of year, harvesting done the old fashioned way - as in pre-tractor. There is nothing like cheese curds fresh from the vat, still warm, and freshly bagged.

Next stop was the co-op creamery in Westby, WI - (N43.65120 W90.85877) - more cheese...

Apples! The area along WI state highway 101 at its intersection with US-61 (N43.32695 W90.74153) and West to Gays Mills, WI (N43.31316 W90.84234) is a fine apple growing area - with several orchards along the way - Sunrise Orchard (N43.31763 W90.83117) is my favorite. Their apple doughnuts are to die for.

Final stop before heading home - Lansing, IA and their Mt. Hosmer City Park (N43.36187 W91.22223) - features two scenic overlooks down on the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge, and the town of Lansing. Has a cool bridge over the main channel of the river - and is the location of the probably most difficult turn for barge traffic on the river - almost a 90 degree turn.

And on the way - I found Romance!! (N43.55729 W91.12883) - A little unincorporated spot on the road that has a building with a sign boasting that it was a Grocery, bar & grill.

Had an enjoyable day.

Went to the Pumpkin Festival in Allardt, TN. Literally the crossing of 2 roads in Middle Tennessee. Easy to get to and is also along the same route that the Largest Yard Sale happens on each year - Highway 127.

It's a great festival, lots of crafts, food, entertainment, a parade, and some frikkin' huge pumpkins. Some of the largest pumpkins this year were 820-890 lbs. The largest watermelons were 213 lbs. No record breakers, but still huge.

I just returned from a 2500 mile trip from WI to LA. The rest area POI was a godsend for me and my wife. Thanks a lot to MrKen and others for putting the POI together.

I've already sent Ken about 10 changes to the POI that I noticed on our trip. Keep up the good work!

Guess I'll have to download them before the next trip!!

Got me where I needed to be in NYC but I messed up by not looking on the correct side of the street that the garage I was looking for so I had to make a few trips around the block.

We drove from Texas to Florida a few weeks ago.

Having some of the POI files from here really helped!!

avoided the crazy traffic in downtown LA

I recently took a trip from St. Louis to the Smokey Mountains. My Nuvi 350 worked perfect. I didn't even look at a map the entire trip. I went to Gatlinburg, through the mountains to Townsend and then to Nashville. Every turn was right on the money. I didn't even make reservations. I waited until I was in the area and looked up lodging. I found the number, called for pricing and used my Nuvi to take me there. It found all my restaurants and got in the right lane for every turn on my way home. I used the custom rest stop poi and had it notify me a mile ahead of all my rest stops. Wow, I can't live without this thing!

There's supposed to be an INTENTIONAL "GPS Dead-zone" around the Mall and a few other places in the Washington DC area - for security reasons.....think about it....

I lived there for about 14 years - doing things I can't talk about

Had to fly into Tulsa and drive to Fort Smith, AR. not very exciting but none the less the restaurant database was correct.

Just took on a roadtrip up to Baltimore, decided to head over to Frederick and then back home. Going to take it to MN in a couple of weeks to use in our rental car.

Ok, so I learned a lesson. I found a repair facility in town that fixes my brand of power tools. Looked up their address, plugged it into the GPS and went on my way to take in some tools.

Did I mention that the wife asked me if I had called them ahead of time? Well I didn't.

The GPS worked great! It took me right to where they use to be. LOL... anyway, I then gave them a call and found out that they had moved their store across town.

GPS was right. Wife was right. I had a learning experience.

We took ours to Branson, MO and Table Rock State Park. The Garmon got us there and back with no trouble and it also found us a couple of cracker barrel's to eat in.

How do you get a windmill? What is a windmill?

On the way back from New Jersey on I 195 & new jersey turnpike it was so foggy that you could not see the signs at 4 am in the morning, But with the gps you new were you were at all the time. It's was a life saver would nerver be without one.

Here are the FAQ's for this program;)

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/6660

Taking the Nuvi to Chicago area this weekend for the Purdue @ Northwestern game (and to visit daughter). Never been to an away game. Go Boilers!!!

Honesdale, PA To And From No Problems.

Nuvi 360

Can you say "Homeland Security"?

I recently went on a trip into the wilds of Manitoba. I mean, the middle of nowheresville, population, 3. My 760 knew all the dirt roads and trails and paths through pastures and got me all over the place with no hiccups. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the Speed and Redlight files saved me on more than one occasion while driving around Winnepeg.

Don't always believe that the 'suggested route' is the fastest but it will certainly get you to where you are going!

I'm headed for Pheonix next week and looking forward to using my 660. I was in the Dallas area last week. Shortly after leaving the DFW airport on my way to Denton, I missed a turn and ended up on a service road which follows along the highway. My gps thought I was on the highway and gave directions to make several turns which were impossible. It took me several miles to get back on the highway and then follow the directions given. The moral of this story is be aert and make the turns as directed!

gusb