Tuesday, February 19, 2008

My new Garmin Gadget

Nancy got me a Garmin 550 for my birthday and today we are in North Carolina testing it out. My early analysis is that it gets us in the area, but twice when we got down to the last 500 ft it had us going the wrong way. Not sure why that happens. The location was on the other side of the street or a bit different location than the directions gave us. The lady kept saying it was right there as we drove by but it wasn't there at all. We quickly learned to look around that spot and it was in the immediate area but certainly not where it told us. So it was close but no cigar on the exact location.

Later today we were on the Blue Ridge Parkway and the little Garmin got totally confused. It was trying to send us the wrong way and wanted us to go in circles. We would have never made it out of there if we didn't have our trusty map with us. We had decided to stop earlier today to pick up the old fashioned map since I wasn't sure if my wireless air card would get signal up in the mountains (which it didn't) so it was very good we got a printed map to have along for the ride. We finally found our way off the parkway and then the Garmin insisted on taking us on some state roads rather than the four lane highway and Interstate roads we decided were our route of choice. I think there is probably some fine tuning I need to do on the settings. Overall I am pretty pleased with the unit. It has certainly been a better director than I am when reading the map. Nancy was always frustrated with my slowness to give directions ahead of the time she needs to turn or my total lack of giving any directions at all. We still aren't ready to throw away the map but it is a very nice addition to our travels and something we will carry with us as we explore this great nation. We were able to use it today to find a couple of cemetaries where Nancy's relatives were buried in combination with the power of the web. Takes a bunch of electronics to go on vacation anymore - cell, GPS, PDA, pc with search. The rental car we have has two cig lighter plugs fortunately so we can keep them all charged up. But without the technology we may have been wandering for a while. We never would have found the county historical society or those two cemetaries without the tools. It takes a village of electronics for us to travel now!

1 comment:

Phil Kenealy said...

Sounds like it takes two people to travel with you as well, Arlin!