I Did Something Today That Was Accidentally Ingenious

[pdub]

Coming home today from Ohio.....the electronic sign way before Knoxville advertised it: Left two lanes closed on I-40 West at Exit whatever.

Yep. They were paving. I've got no other way home through there. And it was true, it's amazing how many folks don't believe the left two lanes are closed when all the signs say it. We'll race each other in the left two lanes and then act real surprised when the road runs out, and turn our blinkers on and stuff.

So, everybody stopped on the interstate. Right beside the sign that said left lanes closed, 2 miles away. We were going one car length per minute. And I was in the far right lane. Because I believed the signs. But there was an exit, like the grail. Get off the interstate.

So I wandered around in Knoxville, stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic that was moving faster than the folks trapped on the interstate, and came out on an on-ramp exactly where the construction gridlock roadblock ended. I wasted 30 minutes instead of 3 hours. I'm so dadgum smart I don't even know how to rate myself as far as being smart.

That was the luckiest thing ever. My GPS was screaming get back on the interstate, turn around. I ignored it. Kept going through town. Nearly wrecked once. Just gawking and thinking and figuring in the middle of a big busy intersection - that's how wrecks happen. Dead reckoning. East/West. Made it. Win. I've never driven in Knoxville, sure don't know my way "around."

[Gary 351C]

Good for you Pdub! You weren't one of those folks who drives down a boat ramp and into a lake because their GPS told them to.

[Thumpin455]

Hot damn Pdub, sometimes that works, sometimes not. I drove through Knoxville at 5pm with my blue Formula when it had a cantankerous and obnoxiously loud 400 in it, going 4mph wasn't doing it any favors so when it hit 230f I pulled over and got a sandwich for four hours. That place sucks, has always sucked, and continues to suck to drive in unless its 0300 on a Sunday.

[corvettedad]

Its amazing how we survived before technology, sometimes I just take off and leave technology at home and just ride. It has amazed my son every year since we started HRPT that when we would stray off the route for whatever reason I would not listen to the girl in the phone telling me turn this way and I would still get to where we were going.

[tedly]

Did you visit the Sunsphere while you were there Peedub?

[Big Dave]

My I don't own a GPS and never will..........I enjoy traveling off the beaten path never know what you'll find!

[DanStokes]

No GPS love here, either. We pull up Google maps and print them before we head somewhere new, and ME has a fondness for AAA Triptics. Somehow we get to where we're going.

Dan

[TheSilverBuick]

Google Maps/directions with traffic works pretty good. I don't think it does side streets as well, but in the southern California freeway network it'll point you down the path with that is moving the quickest. At least in theory. It's hard to actually prove which way is actually quicker unless you have a buddy in another car sticking to the alternative route. The traffic speed resolution the program has, at least in southern California blows me away. 90% of the time I've seen, traffic comes to a crawl or speeds up right where it says it does on the map, as in within 100 feet or so it seems (aka about 5 car lengths).

[Barry Donovan]

Its amazing how we survived before technology, sometimes I just take off and leave technology at home and just ride. It has amazed my son every year since we started HRPT that when we would stray off the route for whatever reason I would not listen to the girl in the phone telling me turn this way and I would still get to where we were going.

me too. No gps, no gadgets. Watch the tach and the speedos exponential loss.


Approaching 3600 =90










The past two weeks, my 60000 hour home built pc has been given a tiny usb wireless card, and now have the blue tooth gadget on the way for headphones etc.
I stay way back from a lot of things. I do know what I am missing sometimes. Out here in the clean air is making a bigger lightbulb.

I stretch , smack a finger off the 8 foot something ceiling, bang the fan, rip the headphones with bad foot...

good air is great. I remember to be a runted sasquatch.

[Deaf Bob]

I like the phone's maps, upside down sometimes.. But like Saturday night at 10 PM 5 hrs from home, needed fuel for the tow rig and passengers, the phone showed us where to go.. If we got time, basically know where we are going, we do that..