I want to see a map. Then I'll figure out the route myself.

The most interesting directions I ever got started with "You go down to where the old church used to be...." That was from my father-in-law, who was completely serious. My (30 years ex - thank the gods) wife explained that I had never been in that area before and had no way to recognize where the old church used to be. Further directions took a few false starts, because he just couldn't get past starting from where the old church used to be. That was entertaining, if cray cray.

My wife has no sense of direction, except that she can tell up from down. On the other hand, I think I must have descended from homing pigeons.

She uses the car satnav for everything - even local trips. My car's nav system is almost never used unless I am in a city and want to find my way out.

I love maps. But I often don't use them except to get a general sense of how I ought to get from hither to yon.

There are places that confound me - sometimes I've stopped the car and looked at the stars tor angle of the sun o get my bearings; Northern Virginia is my navigational nemesis.

In the Boy Scouts I really liked to do map and compass orienteering.

One one backpacking trip as we were crossing a pass a friend pointed at some distant lakes and said those are the XYX lakes and I said, no, those are the Rae Lakes - he was insistent, so he proposed a bet. He ended up takings us all out to a very nice Moroccan restaurant.

I want to get an astrolabe.

I pretty much always know where I am. I do use GPS (Waze) because it can alert me to traffic and other hazards ahead - nothing that my sense of direction can do.

North-up, btw. I will die on this hill.

I miss having a dedicated GPS. There was only one that meshed with my weirdo brain—I think it was Garmin.

I try to use anti-fascist Mapquest, sometimes end up using Gulf of America Apple Maps, as a last resort (i.e. finding cause of stopped traffic) I'll launch Google-infested Waze.

North-up, btw. I will die on this hill.

Indeed. And down South.
That said, I know my way around the Left Coast and some of the Liner States, (meaning any route from Tucson to Coeur d'Alene). Don't need GPS for anywhere in SoCal. I'll likely age out of driving altogether in a few years, but as long as I can reach it by rail, I can take my bike.

Heh. Mrs. Dean and I rambled for almost a week in the Cotswolds. We had practically step-by-step instructions printed out, from each B&B to the next. I daresay we could have used GPS, but it never actually occurred to either of us, oddly. Well, we were impersonating hobbits in the Shire. Hobbit had no GPS.

When I was living in Germany, I liked to bike around the highly rural area in which I was living. Nothing even remotely grid-like, so I went ahead and used GPS. Mainly, I'd get an idea of what I should do, and occasionally stop to find out if I'd gone off-path (sometimes yes, sometimes no).

One day I thought I'd skip the GPS, on the way to a favorite stopping point. I was doing quite well, quite pleased with myself. "Yes, I remember this line of trees! Yes, oh yes, this line of trees. This line. Of trees. Wait a minute, I think there have been too many of these trees. But I feel so confident!"

I had actually hoped to get lost, and I did. The GPS got me to where I was going, but by a totally different route than ever, and much more back-woodsy. "Am I really supposed to be riding my bike through the mud in what looks like somebody's back yard!?" Checks GPS. Yes. The chili con carne and a couple Texel's at Ralph's Taverne were exceedingly enjoyable after that adventure.

We have some property in New Hampshire. One day I set out to walk the boundary. It is on a hill that was once pasture (with those great New England stone walls) that has since become overgrown with sugar maples and other trees. The property line is complicated with lots of bends, corners, and hard to find iron pipes pounded into the ground as markers.

So I set forth with my trusty GPS and a magnetic compass, and years of orienteering experience. I had only my feet to measure distances (I guess I could have used the GPS.) My goal was to create GPS waypoints for each corner and bend of the property line.

Things went very wrong. It was hard to follow boundary lines such as "50.5 degrees for 150 feet" - because one could not see 150 feet through the forest and because I could not get a consistent bearing of 50.5 degrees. I had compensated for true vs magnetic north, but my compass needle was not acting consistently. It turned out that the hill had magnetic properties that screwed up the magnetic compass. And the GPS was not accurate enough to compensate, especially as I was being eaten by deer flies. Walls were easy to notice, but those pipes were hard to spot. (It doesn't help that part of the boundary line crosses a swamp.)

Here's the legal property definition...

1. Beginning at a set iron pipe located in a stone wall in the easterly right-of-way of Gleason Road, which iron pipe marks the northern most corner of Quimby Parcel 7

2. thence proceeding South 02° 11’ 44” East a distance of 990.23 feet along Quimby Parcel 2, as shown on said Plan, to a set iron pipe

3. thence turning and proceeding North 68° 02’ 46” East a distance of 260.78 feet along Quimby Parcel 2 to an existing iron pipe

4. thence turning and proceeding South 23° 39’ 33” East a distance of 282.49 feet along property now or formerly belonging to Caroline G. Bartles to the end of a stone wall

5. thence continuing South 25° 04’ 08” East along said stone wall and land now or formerly of Caroline G. Bartles a distance of 350.60 feet to the intersection of said stone wall and a wire fence

6. thence turning and proceeding South 61° 55’ 19” West a distance of 1,086.79 feet along land now or formerly of Peter Martin and Lynn Freeman to an existing iron pipe

7. thence turning and proceeding North 25° 26’ 05” West a distance of 1,490.00 feet along land now or formerly of Kimball Union Academy to a stone wall

8. thence turning and proceeding North 66° 48’ 10” East a distance of 230.30 feet along said stone wall and land identified on said Plan as Gleason Cemetery to a point

9. thence turning and proceeding North 04° 39’ 23” East a distance of 251.82 feet along a stone wall and said Gleason Cemetery

10. thence continuing North 06° 07’ 55” East a distance of 72.90 feet to a stone wall; thence continuing North 06° 44’ 29” East along said stone wall a distance of 65.81 feet to a wire fence

11. thence continuing North 03° 22’ 36” East a distance of 145.04 feet along said wire fence and Gleason Cemetery to a point in a stone wall in the easterly right-of-way line in Gleason Road, which point is marked “A” on said Plan

12. thence turning and proceeding along said stone wall located in the easterly right-of-way line of Gleason Road a distance of 803 feet more or less, to a set iron pipe in said stone wall, which pipe is marked “B” on said Plan and marks the point and place of beginning.

Friends of my family's in Spokane, Washington bought some land ans asked us if we'd help them out in verifying the survey. We rented a theodolite and a hundred-foot tape measure, took my lensatic compass, and set to it. At one point we had to "step around" a tree that was directly on the property line.

We didn't miss any of the survey pins by more than six inches. One of them, we were absolutely dead on.

I wonder if there's places where nazis get kerbstomped.
I hope so.

Anyway, this topic gives me an opportunity to point out the coolest textbook I've ever come across in any topic:
Stephen C Levinson "Space in Language and Cognition".

Amazeballs, truly.

another vote for north-up

I kind of get the temptation to make everything oriented toward which way your car is pointing... but next thing you know, left is right, up is down...

First time I ever used GPS also - 2005, rented a car with a buddy for a trip to NYC... we named it "Molly" based on the voice. She sounded a little bit annoyed when she said "reeee - - calculating!" after we missed a turn.

That Christmas I told my wife we wanted a Molly. We ended up with one for the car and two more handheld, and began Geocaching. Which was great for a few years.

Then in 2013 we got into Ingress and went strong (blue!) for about four years. Niantic eventually bloated the game so much our phones wouldn't support it any more and we quit it.

@DeanC 1, GPS 0

🏆

well dammit... tried to load Organic Maps and got hit for my Apple password... entered the password that opens my computer every time I sit down here... womp womp

seem to recall that happening another time recently, and I had no idea what to do about it then either—not gonna reset it at the risk of locking my computer!

I've installed like 100 (!) apps on the phone, and now all of a sudden they want a password?

I shut off icloud because it was uploading images against my will then bitching that it was out of space

I paid bank for 512k onboard the phone for a reason 😒