Did something dumb today.

[Old Greenhorn]

  ....... I sure wish I could remember that guys name. ;D

Maybe it's just as well that you can't, just sayin'   :D ;D

[aigheadish]

I just got back from a trip to Gatlinburg, this past Saturday. My dumb thing happened on the way down... I pride myself on being a map fan and I have a pretty good sense of direction. That being said, with the future being now, I just printed up the directions from Google Maps and we went on our way. The directions, when I looked at them quickly, just said take I-75 south to 66. There was a million lines of info between that I didn't need so I didn't look too hard and it should be easy enough to keep an eye out for 66. Well, from Dayton, this is about a 6 hour drive. I'm with the family so we take a few pitstops after leaving home around 930am. I don't pay a whole lot of attention, but we're keeping watch for 66. It never comes, so we keep driving, it still never comes. We stop for gas and I say "man, it seems like we've been driving quite a ways..." and I open up the map on my phone and turn on location to see where we are. Well, it turns out we were near Cleveland, TN, which is almost Georgia and we missed the turn (onto Rt. 40 no less) about an hour and a half back. We ended up taking the south east route into Gatlinburg and that 6 hours turned into 12 as we got to the cabin at about 915pm. 

The kids made fun of me for the rest of the trip. Oh yeah, we also went to Biltmore in Asheville, NC and you guessed it, we got lost both on the way there and the way back. Ridiculous. 

[thecfarm]

As I say when I miss a turn, we would of never seen this.  :D
My FIL is always trying to tell me how to go.  :  Take this route and this route and this route and this route that will save you 15 minutes. Miss one route and there goes that 15 minutes. The long way is sometimes the quickest way.  ;)

[samandothers]

  I can't remember the guy's name  : but I heard about a guy one time who thought his chainsaw had locked/seized up and took it to a friend who had a small engine shop and found the chain brake was on and that was why the chain wouldn't roll. I sure wish I could remember that guys name. ;D

I know it was not me.  I had my wife take mine!

[WV Sawmiller]

   Probably the same tale and I must have just got the details crossed up. :D :D

[firefighter ontheside]

Got off work at 0700 this morning and went to pick up my trailer that had been loaded with logs.  Mostly small walnut and oak, nothing to speak of.  Brought it home with no trouble.  Shortly after I got home I went into the kiln to re-arrange things to get ready to list some for sale.  Walked back past the truck and heard a hissing sound and assumed it was coming from my camper propane tank.  Nope, it was coming from my truck.  I found a shard of metal sticking out of one of my rear tires.  I love my truck, but I hate changing a tire on a 1 ton.  I got the nuts off, but the wheel didn't want to budge.  I pulled, kicked and pried to no avail.  Finally I thought to get a 2x4x8 and put it against the inside of the wheel and hit it with a sledge from the other side.  Voila!  That worked.  Now I'm waiting to see if my tire can be repaired. I really don't want to buy new tires until winter.

[farmfromkansas]

About that traveling, sometimes it is not smart to trust your phone for navigation.  When I went to Hereford Colorado to pick up my F-450, we were on the highway heading for the town, and my friend put the address of the place we were going on his phone, and the phone said to make this turn.  It was through a cattle guard on a dirt road.  So we followed the phone's instructions, and out in the middle of nowhere the phone announced you have arrived at your destination.  There was a house nearby, so drove up there, and this woman said she had never heard of the guy who had the truck.  So we wound up driving another about 40 miles of dirt roads just to get back to the highway.  Finally got an address for a business in town, and the phone directed us to that place.  The guy was less than a mile away.

[firefighter ontheside]

Yeah, GPS is not perfect.  I have lots of people coming to buy from me, but GPS takes people on the wrong driveway.  My neighbor's driveway is in the woods not far from my house, so GPS takes people down that driveway.  They get right behind my pond and it says you have arrived.  His driveway is about 1/4 mile long.  It sucks for him to have people showing up at his place which is supposed to be off the beaten path.  Now I give my address, but with a long description to not trust GPS and make sure to find my mailbox with my address and orange sawblade decals on it.  I don't want to have any kind of sign with my business name on it, because I don't want people showing up unannounced.

[sawguy21]

More people have gotten into trouble blindly following the GPS like the couple that showed up at the Canadian border with a loaded handgun in the glove box. It didn't go well for them. My girlfriend used hers to find an address in a neighbouring town, I know the area quite well but she wouldn't give me the address. We wandered all over backroads until we found the place we were looking for. When we left I directed her back to the main road, two minutes away.

[aigheadish]

I usually try to just look at a map and take notes because I've found the GPS to either be wrong or I feel myself get dumber every time I use it. Didn't work like that this past time. 

[Don P]

There's a road nearby that has signs from both directions "GPS routing not advised". Apparently the phone tries to send truckers down it over and over. Depending on how determined they are, they keep trying till they are pinched in switchbacks and inspecting the back doors of their trailer from the cab  :D.

I can't speak to glossing over the details on google maps, we went to a little town in NC by way of SC the other week  :D. I stopped at the rest area on the way back into state and got a map I unnerstand!

[Nebraska]

My kids think I am a dinosaur, I always have a road atlas in the truck if I take a trip.

[RichTired]

I traveled the last twenty years of my career and I had my share of GPS mis-directions. But I also have had a few printed maps with errors. When our first born son was just 6 weeks old we took a trip to the Chicago area and stuck going back and forth thru tolls booths looking for an exit that was on the map, but not on the highway.  :embarassed:

[Ljohnsaw]

There's a road nearby that has signs from both directions "GPS routing not advised"

 

[Old Greenhorn]

Been reading an enjoying these. I bought a small Tom-Tom GPS a number of years back and used it a lot but quickly learned to confirm EVERY planned route with a map before venturing to unknown territory. I still like maps the most but they can be hard to read as you drive through complex sections. I use google maps and print out the unfamiliar areas. Around here the cell coverage is spotty and can quit just when you need it most, so I still keep that GPS unit in the truck because it works off satellites and is much more reliable. I have never 'lost' the signal on that. But the maps in those can be wrong, telling you to 'turn left' while you are staring at a large sign that says "No Left Turn" or finding roads that don't exist. The first house on the corner of our road is one of the oldest around and was built long before the reservoir (1903) back at that time it was a farm on the outskirts of the village that is now under the reservoir. Anyway, the GPS shows their driveway that cuts around the back of their house from one road to the other, as a road and is constantly trying to direct me over that road. SO I never trust any of the GPS devices of any design. 
 Visiting my cousin in Texas driving from Waco to Angleton at night I used the GPS unit in the rental car (ordered up special for extra cost at that time). I was unfamiliar with approaching their neighborhood from that direction and the GPS had me making a left turn into and through an open field of about 20 acres. I was tired after 3 days of intense business in Waco and a 4 hour drive which included the loop around Houston (those folks are NUTS!). No road, track or trail was even visible. I looped around twice to confirm it and I was so unfamiliar with the area, especially in the dark, and knew that I was within 1 mile of their house so I just went back to my own logic and drove on and made the next left, went down a ways and made another left to come in from the side I was more familiar with (only 5 years since the prior visit). Sure enough, the GPS 'recalculated' and brought me to their address. I later learned that where the GPS 'wanted' me to go had been a PLANNED road for their development that never happened.
 So, 'trust but confirm' is always my motto.

[firefighter ontheside]

I need that sign on my road.

Several years ago coming home from Florida, pulling my fifth wheel I went on a road that my GPS told me to go on.  I sure wish that sign had been there.  Between the curves, low hanging limbs and blind hills I'm amazed I made it thru without incident.  

[Resonator]

Apparently the phone tries to send truckers down it over and over. Depending on how determined they are, they keep trying till they are pinched in switchbacks and inspecting the back doors of their trailer from the cab

There are 2 kinds of GPS, truck route and car route, the truck route will be designed for a 13' 6" tall truck pulling a 53' long trailer. I drove for twenty years as a professional truck driver, and often delivered to new construction projects "Where The Streets Have No Name." ;D
I learned a paper map is only good for a couple years until the state decides to build a new interstate. For the same reason a GPS is only as good as it's last update, and will show you in the middle of a corn field when your actually on a new bypass. The satellite picture view helps a lot, but again the image could be 7 years old. Plan your route before you leave, call ahead to your destination, and check the state DOT website for the most up to date map. This will also tell where the major road construction projects are, before you start "recalculating shortest route..."

[breederman]

I route with Garmin every day, 20 stops or more. I think it is pretty good in Ny terrible in PA . It is always a good idea to look before making a turn onto a back road. 😜

[RAYAR]

There are different settings in your GPS and one that I believe most people set is "shortest route". This one is the likely suspect of most peoples troubles, leading you through mapped trails and tracks etc. Check out the different settings in your GPS and choose an appropriate one other than "shortest route".

[breederman]

Also in "avoidances " pic "avoid dirt roads."

[terrifictimbersllc]

I wish there were "avoid parkways"

[breederman]

Me too, in this state it's illegal to drive a commercial vehicle on one.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, that is kind of unique to our area and what a pain. I have been pulled over several times for 'perceived infractions'. It ridiculous. I played the game for a while having a backseat with seatbelts in the back of my pickup and a non-commercial registration, but then the cops wanted to ticket me for 'improper registration' even though I fit within the law to a Tee. They hated it. Never got a ticket, but had a lot of 'roadside conversations'.

[Hilltop366]

Drive in the parkway and park in the driveway. smiley_huh

[breederman]

I didn't know it was illegal when I first started driving the ln truck and I was happily coming up the Toncnnough (sp) parkway talking on the phone with our sales guy. When he realized where I was he screamed " get the F off of there!"