Where In The World Are We?

I worked for Trimble Navigation on hand held GPS receivers as the GPS satellite constellation was going up.  I contributed to the development of a number of GPS receivers used in aviation, marine, and land based applications.  One of the receivers, the Pathfinder Basic, was used in quantities in the first Gulf War.  I am very pleased with the way GPS has become commonplace in our smart phones and computers.  It is an amazing technology that has saved lives.

Tracking Our Travels with GPS

We’ve only been retired for a few months.  We’re enjoying the freedom not having to work provides.  Over the years we’ve saved enough to have an annual travel budget.  This fall we’ll be visiting family on our photography trip to New England.  I would like to have our location published to have family members track our progress across the U.S. This way they will know how close we are and when we might drop by.  Ideally we would publish a record of where we’ve been.

I-70 vs I-80

We will be driving I-70 rather than I-80 through Nevada and Colorado.   I’ve read many Q&A about driving I-70 in an RV.  I-70 has many more steep grades and twisties than does I-80.  I-80 is the preferred truck route and it is said to be boring.  By geo-tagging our route we can reference specific locations on a map as we describe our experiences driving through Nevada, Colorado, and all the way to the east coast.  We may be able to share a map with tags that reference photos taken along the route.

We are not alone in choosing between I-70 and I-80.  Others may find that our description and dash cam footage influences their route decision.

Glympse

I’ve added GeoLocation to our blog on the header menu.  Clicking on Our Current GeoLocation transfers you to Glympse and displays our last tagged location on a map.

This was easily accomplished by installing Glympse on my iPhone; adding the tag Gps, and linking a menu item to the Glympse URL the tag generated.  I have to remember to update our GPS location on Glympse regularly and only the our most recent location will display.  This is “ok”.

What Next?

Ideally we’ll store a track over time of our geolocations.  Glympse does not seem adequate to this task.  Once I’m happy with our solution, I’ll update our blog with the info.

AllStays

We have had very good experiences finding campgrounds as we travel.  Before we left to purchase “Li’l Beast”, I loaded eight campground applications into my iPhone in the hopes that one or two would be useful as we drove from Connecticut to California.  It was mid-winter when we drove back to Ca, and many campgrounds in the north east close for the winter.  One application quickly became our “go to” app for choosing a campground for the night.  AllStays was invaluable to us on that trip and has not let us down since.  It provides filtering to narrow campground searches to exactly what you want or need.  Need 50 amps, water, but sewer hookup?  No problem.  It has an extensive list of amenities to search over.

Wineguard HD DirecTv antenna

We well be leaving on our months long road trip on Sept 16th, 2015; next week.  Ellen will be at a “girl’s retreat” in Tahoe City.  I’ll be staying overnight in Truckee on the 16th and picking her up the next afternoon.  AllStays lists seven campgrounds in the vicinity two of which have electric hookups.   Both are near the freeway and have good reviews (8+).  I need an electric hookup too test; our new Wineguard DirecTv antenna, load the guide, and record a program or two.  Both campgrounds have tall trees and unless I can find a clear view of the southern sky my plans for that evening may be dashed.  We had the antenna installed just before leaving for a friend’s wedding in San Diego.  I have not had the opportunity to play with our HD TV setup.  We’ll ring it out on our New England trip and hopefully not have any issues.

No photos this blog.  We’re counting the days ’till we leave on our next adventure.

 

Ron

 

 

 

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