Forum Discussion
- Our Tom Tom has started taking us down some pretty bizzar routes lately, that simply make no sense, considering there are much better routes. We started relying on a good old paper map again. Technology ... you can't live without it, but you can't live with it either! Sheesh!
- I have found my Garmin does not do very well in Oregon and Arizona. Just because Garmin says there is a road it is not always true. You have to use common sense before going down a cow path or a logging road.
- A GPS is wonderful as long as you keep a close eye on them, as soon as you start trusting them, they lead you astray!
- "instinct told them to turn around when the directions felt wrong, but the duo said their 6-month-old GPS told them to push forward.
“The trees started really closing in on us. We should have stopped"
A feature of trusting technology too much.
We got lost like this on our very first RV adventure (without GPS) LOL
Luck was on our side tho...we were able to drive on and get out unscathed. - I was checking mileages for our Colorado trip on Google Maps. It said from Lake City to Ouray was 30 miles. I knew it had to be more than that so I zoomed in to check and it routes you over the Alpine Loop which is a 4x4 offroad trail.
- Quite a few years ago, when GPSs first became popular, DH and I were on a business trip in Socorro, NM. After dinner, we decided to go for a drive to watch the sunset. We saw a side road that went into BLM land and up onto a hill. So we went and enjoyed the sunset. We were kind of clueless as to how to get back so we used the GPS. 4 hours later, we found ourselves in a field of longhorn steer. It was pitch black, but we did manage to see a sign on a fence, "Entering New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology Bombing Range." It took us another hour to get back to hard surface road (15 minutes to push through the cows alone)and back to the hotel. I have never trusted a GPS again and carry detailed paper maps of any area we travel.
- Well i can assure you it doesn't only happen on the Left coast, and don't ask me how i know.:S
Now my situation wasn't that bad but it came within a few inches of total disaster. The wife and i was on our way to a campground in the ozarks. I had the gps set to hard surface roads only but i soon learned not to trust that either. It had me turning on a gravel road and i thought no i shouldn't turn but i was commited so i went ahead and turned. So after turning and going a short distance it had me doing a very hard left angle turn up a very steep hill. I started the turn then my truck spun out and i said no way i'm not doing this. I then started backing and found myself within inches of going off in a steep ravine with the trailer :o Don't ask me how i got into that mess other than plain old stupidity :S. A longer story short we got out of that situation and now i'm really wondering if i should ever trust our gps again. :B - There are a lot of people who will blindly follow the GPS regardless of where it may say go. Elderly I can somewhat understand as they did not grow up in the techy environment. Others?????
I had an older Garmin that did very good job of providing directions. However, once it tried to take me the back way into Great Sand Dunes NP. That is a 4 wheel only off road route over a mountain pass. Good thing I had been there on previous occasions and knew advance that was not the way to go. But makes me wonder if anyone was lead off on that route by the same misdirections. - Just doing a little boondocking.
