Don, I sympathize with your difficulties reading a map while driving.  Reading a GPS while driving will in all likelihood be just as or more dangerous.

I draft my route (from a map, usually DeLorme's) prior to departure, from a safe, static situation.  Of course, on occasion, I find that the specific turns I need to make are problematic when I actually reach the area on the ground.  But I seldom find myself trying to choose at the time.  If I do, safe pullouts are essential, and I will go miles on a known or unknown route before I will try to read a map or a GPS (actually I don't use the latter -- if it ain't broke, don't fix it) on the fly.

Good luck with all this, and stay safe.

mcneely

---- Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 5:07 PM, neil n <musomuso@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > That looks like a great set of files Loren. Thanks!
> >
> > For any other (mounted in vehicle) GPS newbs .....
> >
> >
>
>   A related question for Streets and Trips users:
>
>   Microsoft offers a windows package that includes GPS hardware with that
> program, right?  I think I saw something like that being sold at the big box
> store where I was browsing through electronic gizmos recently.
>
>   Can anyone tell me how the Streets and Trips with GPS actually works for
> them, in real life, in a Vanagon?  I recall a poster (or two) mentioning
> having their laptops mounted, visible and programmable from the driver's
> position, and that they were using the S&T program on the highway.
>
>   I got 'side-tracked' (wrong turns) a couple of times on my last
> trip...driving alone and trying to navigate -new to me- roads using paper
> maps.  I also had some dicey moments, holding the wheel with my knees,
> trying to keep the van on the tiny back highways in the wind late on a
> stormy moonless night, while reading my DeLorme map in the dark van, using
> my headlamp or the interior lighting.  Not the safest way to be whizzing
> down the highway, but finding a safe 'pull-out' before every 'intersection'
> to stop and read a map, that is not possible, usually.
>
>   If one could leave their laptop in 'sleep-mode' within reach and just flip
> up the screen to see which way to turn, while underway, that would certainly
> be a lot safer than fumbling around with paper maps in the dark, or stopping
> half way off the highway to read a paper map.  Or, as was the case for me,
> making a turn and then finding a place to do a U-Turn to go back to the
> proper road  after a wrong turn.
>
>   Does that option exist?  Is that Streets and Trips with GPS a worthwhile
> way to go?
>
>
> Don Hanson
> 84 5sp inline worker-wagen

--
David McNeely