PC Navigation
I planned the whole trip out using DeLorme Street Atlas
2003 USA on my Vaio Laptop. There are also trip planning programs by Microsoft
and Rand McNally. I researched all of them on line, and in users' reviews
each one was disliked by 60-80% of the the users. Dang. The major complaints
on DeLorme were about the user interface not being Windows compliant - I
figured I could learn a new UI pretty easily so I went with that. It hasn't
been a problem. There a some minor things that would be nice improvements
to the program, but overall it has been a great planning tool for a trip
of this size. The map of our trip found elsewhere on this site was a direct
output from this program.
When we're traveling, I plug our Garmin GPS into the PC, and the DeLorme software updates the map every second with our location. The screen is split into three parts (you can see on the image below). The top left window is a wide view of the map to give you a overall understanding of where you are. The top right window is zoomed in to show much more detail about your location. You can zoom these in and out on the fly depending on how much detail you want. The bottom of the screen gives driving directions for the route you have planned: what the next turn is, how far it is in time and distance, and how far (time and distance again) to your next planned stop.
In addition to knowing where you are, it's also a great way to find points of interest along the way. We also have the TOPO! program with three levels of topo maps for the US. I didn't get the detailed maps, but there is enough there to see geographic features and other interesting sites along the way. That program can also read the GPS and update in real time.
When we're traveling, I plug our Garmin GPS into the PC, and the DeLorme software updates the map every second with our location. The screen is split into three parts (you can see on the image below). The top left window is a wide view of the map to give you a overall understanding of where you are. The top right window is zoomed in to show much more detail about your location. You can zoom these in and out on the fly depending on how much detail you want. The bottom of the screen gives driving directions for the route you have planned: what the next turn is, how far it is in time and distance, and how far (time and distance again) to your next planned stop.
In addition to knowing where you are, it's also a great way to find points of interest along the way. We also have the TOPO! program with three levels of topo maps for the US. I didn't get the detailed maps, but there is enough there to see geographic features and other interesting sites along the way. That program can also read the GPS and update in real time.
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This is a picture of the cab with everything at work
on the road. The GPS sits on the dash and links directly to the PC.
It has its own display, but we don't need it. The PC has a bungee cord around it just below the screen that holds it securely where the cupholders are. It's convenient for driver or navigator to see and manipulate with keys or the fingerpad. The PC runs off of its battery for about 2 hours, and when the low battery warning comes up we switch on the AC Inverter. The Inverter takes 12v from a lighter outlet and converts it to about 150 watts of AC power. The PC's AC power cord is plugged into it, so the PC gets powered and the battery gets recharged. Of course it would be cleaner if you had a 12v plug for your PC, but I don't. Fry's wanted $130 for a DC to DC converter, but I opted for this solution for about $30. The additional benefit, of course, is that we can use the inverter for a myriad of other things, too. (I'm thinking about Margaritas when we're car camping.) It gets hot after awhile, which is why I switch it off when the battery is fully charged. Don't forget the phone! When I was a kid, Dad would pull over every day to check in with the office. Now we're never out of touch. Oh, wait, that kind of defeats a whole feature to this kind of trip. Drats. |
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