Golden State GPS Road Trip Report

I just returned from my first GPS enhanced road trip. Last weekend my wife and I bravely packed three teenaged girls into a Blazer with enough clothes and stuff to fill a Suburban and set out to discover El Camino Real and the Pacific Coast Highway in California. Since we left on short notice I did not manage to program any waypoints into my eTrex for the journey ahead of time. Although the auto club map that we took showed rough longitude and latitude I planned to purchase more detailed map or some sort of GPS companion volume on the road. Some spare AA batteries and a cigarette lighter power adapter for the eTrex combined with two road atlas books to complete my navigational aids.

At first I used the state AAA map to create a few waypoints for towns along my route. The waypoint that I created for Santa Barbara, California worked okay until we reached town and discovered that pursuing it too far would place us a couple hundred yards offshore in the surf of the Pacific Ocean. Although I had resolved to focus on missions, beaches, and other landmarks while avoiding shopping especially at outlet centers and shopping malls I made all four passengers happy by visiting a mall to get access to some bookstores. I selected the Benchmark Maps Road & Recreation Atlas because it featured GPS Grids for the state I was touring on the Landscape and Metro maps it contained. Because of the grid lines marked on each page I was able to determine the coordinates for any intersection, town, or other location in moments by referring to the maps. The major increments were in ten minute blocks so the grid lines were spaced from N 36°30' to N 36°40' and W 121°50' to W 121°40' with tick marks to further aid accuracy. It was simple to look up the map location of Salinas, CA on route 101near the grid intersection of to N 36°40' and W 121°40'and determine that Salinas is located at N 36°40'30" and W 121°39'. My yellow eTrex was already set to the degrees/minutes/seconds data format so creating my own custom waypoint was a breeze.

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Although my on the fly waypoint creation system worked a better way to get started with GPS navigation is to first create a group of waypoints for towns and major intersections that are near your home. These markers could then help you to evaluate and improve personal navigational skills. Test your system by navigating around your neighborhood just as a stranger would while relying on your GPS rather than memory. After passing your self-test you could create and save a library of waypoints in your eTrex for towns, intersections, and landmarks along your planned travel route. Try to anticipate any side trips that you might make so that you can save spare waypoints for them also. One warning about this system: Your maps must be detailed enough to give accuracy to the coordinates that you select. If the scale of your map provides less detail this system will not be so accurate. The scales of the Landscape and Metro maps in the Benchmark Maps Road & Recreation Atlas were 1:300,000 and 1:157,895 respectively. If this particular company does not make maps for your travel area you should be able to find maps or web sites that can yield similar or better accuracy. Microsoft Streets and Trips is a fast PC based solution that can do this for American automotive destinations. Other tools can simplify waypoint and route creation or improve the operation of your GPS. OziExplorer is a fine program that can work with maps to organize or created waypoints and routes. The DC to DC power adapter extended my first set of batteries through the entire trip. Even though the eTrex was used away from the vehicle every day and occasionally left on the standard alkaline AA batteries survived back to the waypoint marked HOME.

By the way, it was FUN using the eTrex to navigate on this family trip. It helped in many ways and enabled me to travel like a local resident in unfamiliar areas. An unexpected bonus for GPS equipped outings with children is the shift of power back to the front seat. Finally navigators around the world have definitive precise answers to the two most dreaded back seat questions of any road trip. Gone are the days when the enemy behind could prompt entertaining episodes of map shuffling and argument with those fiendishly simple questions. Now "Where are we going?" and "How much longer will it take to get there" have lost their cherished ability to confuse and demoralize the front seat team. Mute acceptance was the only possible response when "Gilroy, California the Garlic Capital of the World!" or "37 Minutes!" came down from on high. Once I had the atlas and a system for using it with the GPS planning and navigating were simpler and practically foolproof.

Don

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