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

Used our new Nuvi 260W for our first trial road trip as a test run for our upcoming two weeker.
GPS was nice along the way for the most part. Got a bad grade on its first assignment when it did not locate the correct location for a riverside restaurant.. it said the restaurant was on the north side of a river, and it actually is on the south side.
Also, I downloaded the FL Rest Area POI file and got NO alerts for all of the rest areas on the turnpike, I-75 and I-10... except one when I was actually in the parking lot even though I specified 10,000 ft alert distance. I guess it's because the POI locations are the rest stops themselves and not on the roadway immediately preceeding it.
All in all, I like my new GPS!

. . . for my aunt's funeral. 97 years young.

Just got back from a weekend in Vegas with my GPS.

Getting to Vegas was no big deal, from LA. Getting to my friend's house once I got to town, then finding the local Circle K, and Walmart, the GPS helped that amazingly.

ALthough sometimes, my gps warns me too late to get over to the turn I need to be at. Maybe its because I was going over the speed limit...hard to say...

There's another forum that talks all about avoid tolls, I avoid them. I have a Nuvi 350.

Had some trouble with a few addresses that were Highway vs Hwy vs State Route vs US nn, etc.

Jill pronounces Missouri as "Misery". Took a lot of county and state roads so we heard a lot of "Misery". Crossed through the SE corner of Iowa on the way home, and Jill pronounces that as "Eye Owe-Uh", with emphasis on the middle syllable.

All in all, a little over 1400 miles and about 55 pre-programmed waypoints, not counting the on-the-fly "find a place for lunch" while traveling. Only got misdirected once with a hotel address that neither MapSource, the Nuvi itself and Google could not precisely find. I had programmed the best guess, and was off by about 1/4 mile, but at least it was on the right road.

I just really can't imagine travelling without a GPS. Co-pilot carries a paper map on their lap for the big-picture view, of course.

For our last road trip, I built the entire route as one long route in MapSource. For this trip, I made each day as a separate route and named them as 1-Hannibal, 2-Rolla, etc. The # was the day, and the city was the final destination. That worked out a whole lot better, since the arrival time shown on the Nuvi was for that day only.

My latest day trip on July 12, 2009 was a sightseeing journey with out of town visitors from Sioux Falls SD. We started in Salt Lake City, Utah driving to Brighton Ski Resort in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Arriving at Brighton, we walked around Silver Lake on the boardwalk where we saw a Bull Moose grazing in the stream. There were a number of people fishing with a few even catching pan sized Rainbow Trout.
We continued our journey over the top of Guardsman’s Pass to Heber City, Utah for a quick stop. From Heber City we traveled to Kamas, Utah and began traveling the Mirror Lake Highway stopping along the way at the Upper Falls of the Provo River. Continuing along the Mirror Lake Highway we passed Lily Lake, Teapot Lake, Lost Lake and of course Mirror Lake among hundreds of other small mountain lakes in the region. Passing Bald Mountain Peak at 11,583 feet above sea level the vistas from this vantage point are breathe taking. This is such a wonderful time of year to take the scenic route through the Uinta National Forest. With all the rain we have had this year the mountain flowers are in bloom and vibrant colors flow throughout the valleys and across the hillsides. Mule Deer, Elk and other wildlife are easily spotted throughout the Utah mountain valleys this time of year.
Continuing along our journey we drove to Evanston, Wyoming for a quick bite to eat. Driving back to Salt Lake on I-80 we passed the Park City Resort area where some of the events of the 2001 Winter Olympics were held. This was a full day trip; however it could easily be made a weeklong trip by camping out the Uinta National forest camp grounds.
My Nuvi 660 preformed well on this day trip. Besides City Navigator maps I’ve loaded the US Topographic Maps 2008 into the unit. On a trip like this it’s very nice to be able to switch between the two maps. When one is away from the city without the topographic maps all you would see is a yellow line where the road is. With the Topographic maps you can see the terrain and all of the features not provided in City Navigator. The topographic maps are a perfect addition to an already wonderful travel aid.
By the way, I didn’t have any problem getting Satellite signals at all at this elevation.

Ya some of the pronunciations are off, for sure.
My favorite is my nuvi 760 pronnouncing "Kraemer" (like the character on "Seinfeld") as "Creamer".
The exit i take of the CAlifornia 55 freeway, Victoria, gets the emphasis on the wrong syllable, VictorIa instead of VicTORia - of course the 1st i think is the proper Spanish pronunciation.

I had a wonderful trip to Hawaii. The gps worked perfectly.

No, not mid east US but in Israel on business for 6 weeks. Using a Garmin 750 with the Israel.img map from the internet site found thru The POI Factory. Not the greatest in the City of Tel Aviv but since I'm in the southern part of the country it works just fine. Have to use cooridinate to get to places but that only requires a little bit of planning ahead. I've used the GPS mainly as a show me the roads as I've headed into the Negev Desert.

So the GPS worked great on the drive to hawaii? cool, good to know

I just used it today to get around to people listing things on craiglist. It helps a lot!!

My husband and I brought my Garmin GPS with us when we took a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. We didn't really need it on the cruise obviously, but we brought it for the drive out to LA. I'm really glad we did end up bringing it because my hubby had the great idea to visit some of the sites around Hollywood after our cruise. We didn't have to stop anywhere to try to find flyers or brochures to help us find the fun spots. Instead, we just used the Garmin to get us to the various tourist spots. It was so nice and easy to make it to all of the places we wanted to go using via points. Of course all of the directions were dead-on and helped us extend our vacation another day.

My last trip was to San Diego. Boy I wished I had the traffic receiver that time because there was a huge freeway closing that perhaps I could have known early enough to have my gps get me around it.

Had an uneventful drive from the Baltimore area to Charlottesville, VA a week ago. Smoother trip than expected and no significant traffic issues to be concerned about.

selfish promotion of the new Ice Cream in Eastern CT POI file.......

Great trip especially along the Lake Michigan shore! Needed both the GPS and a map to navigate some of the back roads we took.

Leaving tomorrow with a stop in Myrtle Beach going with nuvi360 of course.

760 worked pretty well for me, but Friday afternoon traffic is a killer - nuvi or not. I was rerouted through DC based on the traffic information and probably saved an hour or two. Will look for other options to avoid the area altogether in the future.

Charlottesville, VA to North of Baltimore

One alternate that usually works is 15 to Frederick, then I-70 east to Bal-more. It's mainly against the traffic flow

Last trip was New jersey but the next trip will be better as it is to Alaska via cruise and a GPS on the ship is loads of fun and very useful

Going to South Carolina and then flying out to San Diego. Will tell you how the new 2010 maps work out.

however i am about to be sleeping with my new gps.

my job has changed with the railroad and i will be living on the road for quite some time. im sure i will have plenty of stories before long.

...Concrete, WA, that is. Nice campground there

to Priest Gulch CO. What a great place!

I tried this feature on my Garmin the last time I was at the airport although I knew exactly where I parked. On the Garmin 750, as soon as you remove the unit from the cradle, it marks that point. Then when you want to find your car, click on Where To, Favorites, Last Position. The first time I tried it, it worked but I was still in Automobile Mode so it tried to follow the roads. You need to switch to Pedestrian Mode in Tools, Settings, System.

winchester mystery house in San Jose CA

earlier this month to escape the heat. Jack sometimes couldn't tell right from left, must have been the thin air but he got us to all the places we wanted to go.

Some were even out of the way like the Bucksnort Saloon. -105.31519, 39.42444

Amazing how much business this place does considering its location. The road back to Pine has to be a natural deterrent to DUI!

On a trip this weekend, the GPSr mapped out a route that surprised me. For years, the fastest way between Milwaukee and home was via the I94 interstate. Apparently, with the recent completion of some 4-lane 65mph highways, the GPS determined that there is a faster route (by 9 minutes) using US41!!

Not a big trip (yet) - today I took my wife and 11-month-old son to the airport, as they were flying to Atlanta to see my brother-in-law and his kids. I'm driving down there next weekend and will be taking a scenic route through the Appalachians, including a trip through Cumberland Gap.

-Dave

We don't have any Whole Foods Markets where I live, but my wife and I have always been curious what one is like, particularly since we've vowed to start eating healthier. So we found the nearest Whole Foods Market to us, which happened to be in a suburb of Baltimore. We weren't overly impressed with what we saw, as we realized we could get a lot of the same things they had at our local supermarket, but it was a nice way to spend the day anyways. The thing I like best about having a GPS is that you never have to worry about getting lost. Even if you make a wrong turn, there's always that "Recalculating..." to get you back on your way.

P.S. I used TTS Voice Editor to change my "Recalculating" to "Looks like you missed your turn...you big dummy!". The first time someone hears that, they're like "What did that just say? Make it do it again!"

We rode the mules down into the Grand Canyon. The magellan track lets us relive the trip again when saved to the PC. I sync the time with the digital camera, so I know each pic location. My honey & I take 3 to 5 motor car vacations per year. The best GPS info is how far to the next McDonalds for coffee & a pit stop.

Went to see a friend in ON. 760 with "new" map v2010.1 was great. Miss having the speed limit on freeways once entered CA though.

Why speed limit on roads are missing from Canadian maps?

Had a great day of riding with friends this weekend. 750 miles in two days through the beautiful and scenic WV/VA country side. The Garmin Zumo came in handy to show the closest hospital as one of our friends had an accident on his bike and had to get stitches.
Other than the unfortunate mishap, the weekend was a blast.

NavTeq hasn't added that info to the data base yet. Garmin says, "It coming, real soon now".

Unfortunately, our TomTom thought we had arrived at our destination ... in the middle of Lake Shore Drive

Here's where it led us to: http://maps.google.com/maps?cbp=11,179.75,,0,-2.84&cbll=41.8... The actual museum is to the east of LSD. We eventually found our way there, though.

So do I on my Nuvi 255W.

I used my 760 to get around El Segundo, very handy considering the Chevron Oil Refinery cuts off many streets running parallel to the coast. The only issue I had was that the boot-up time and time to draw the route took FOREVER. I would have to pull off the side of the road and wait for five minutes or so.

Now that I'm back home, I did a search and saw some suggestions to Clear the Trip Log after every use. Just clearing it now and simulating a new trip reduced the startup time from almost two minutes to 17 seconds...so obviously that is a very useful trick!

After living in Florida for 5 years, we finally took a day trip over to Cedar Key. We had been told that this place was like the Florida Keys had been 30/40 years ago. It was a fun trip. The trusty old Nuvi 750 took us there without a hitch. Was great to use in an area which we were absolutely not familiar.

Cedar Key is a colorful old fishing/ shrimping/clamming community which has fallen on somewhat hard times. A few of the smaller shops were permanently closed and others close on Wednesdays so we missed some of the local shopping, but had a great time. Took a boat trip with a long time resident and got a lot of info on the history of the place. Didn't know that the pencils I used in grade school were made there by Faber. Brought back memories and the smell of the cedar trees.

Cedar Key is well worth a day trip and possibly even longer if you wanted to fish or do more sightseeing. Really a quaint place.

Started on Thursday from Cleveland to Livonia (Detroit) for business and a side trip to Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. M4 is a wonderful little arcade of the games of the past---pinball machines, fortune tellers, animatronics from Chuck E Cheese's, and side show freaks.

Then it was off to Columbus to take in the Jazz & Rib Fest on Friday. A really well put together and run rib fest---free admission, large area with two stages, and reasonably priced meals where each booth took real money instead of requiring you to pre-buy tickets.

Saturday was spent all day the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, a place I hadn't been to since I was too young to drive. To see the assembled power in the hangers was truly amazing. Bockscar, "The plane that ended WWII" was prominently displayed (it dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki). There was a V-2 Rocket, an F-22, an F-117, a B-1, a B-2, an SR-71, and even an Avro Flying Car (flying saucer). Of course, many, many more warplanes and I didn't even have time to see the ones outside.

Sunday was off to Zanesville, where my first stop was the Y-Bridge, then the world's largest basket (the Longaberger headquarters building) in Newark, the world's largest apple basket in Frazeysburg, and finally another real treat of this trip, the Auman Museum of Radio & TV in Dover.

The TV museum was a sight to behold, although it is inside a very non-descript building among an equally bunch of non-descript businesses on either side of it. In fact, if my GPSr hadn't known the address, I might have passed right by it without knowing it. Suffice it to say, if you've ever turned on a TV in your lifetime, this museum will bring back many a memory for you. From TVs made in the late 1920's to sets in the 1950's (he stops in the '50's for a reason), Mr. Robert Auman runs this place as a labor of love and his guided tour (by appointment only) is worth many times the $5 a person he charges.

By late Sunday night I was home, 847 miles and 25.1 mpg later, and just waiting to open up my new 1490T for next month's trips.

Well, just finished my trip and the gps worked as usual. Started out in KY to WV to MD to PA to NY to CT and finished in MA. Then back to KY through CT, NY, PA, OH and back home to KY

Our last trip with the GPS was to "Perogi Fest" in Whiting Indiana last Sunday.

And, it's apparently between Gary, IN and Chicago? I'm getting it on my 2010 calendar as soon as possible! Thanks for the post.

over 6 months ago to a hard to find pharmacy

The Kickapoo River in SE Wisconsin goes all four directions in just a few miles. I had our destination plugged in. We were within 2 miles, then almost 3 miles away before we started getting closer again. This is a great canoe trip, starting at Ontario WI & finishing up at Wildcat State Park. The weather on Tuesday was perfect.

Just returned from Salt Lake City and used my 680 for client meetings and a quick stop at a local Starbucks

Never been in a city with so many streets using numbers for street names.

The Starbucks was at the corner of 600S and 400E

Just used it to find a small town in southern Ontario.It worked great.

Use it every Saturday (when not camping) to get me to the golf course. Don't need it most of the time but I like watching the ETA and seeing how accurate it is.

That's SW Wi... - and a wonderful area in the fall, around Apple harvest time - near Gays Mills... I've gone every year but two of the last 40...

This week I used my Garmin to get me around toll roads on my way to new work locations in Kansas.
Worked great, new scenery and no tolls to pay!