One Tip to Avoid the Most Deadly Travel Mistakes [bestcomputersprices.blogspot.com]

One Tip to Avoid the Most Deadly Travel Mistakes [bestcomputersprices.blogspot.com]

The atmosphere of Belvedere's, a dive bar on Butler Street in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood â€" with its stage and pool tables and little in the way of ambiance â€" was completely transformed by the bass. ..... to "play" any electronic ... Beyond lies the wub: a history of dubstep

The kids are grown and out of the house so my husband and I planned a long overdue vacation to South Dakota. We had not been on vacation in years so we were like two teenagers who just got the keys to their parent's car to do whatever we wanted. Footloose and fancy free we were going to be leaving the TV behind, phones at work, computer, and all those other electronics that take up the majority of our day.

Forgot To Plan For His Forgetfulness

We didn't want every minute planned; we were in for an adventure. We wanted to take things in as they came and just go with the flow. We rented a SUV because it seemed to fit in more with our escapade not to mention a SUV was better equip for the terrain of the southwest than our Ford Focus was. My husband Joseph did MapQuest for our final destination and the way home.

If we saw something on the way we wanted to see, well then we would stop and see it. Everything was packed and ready to go. We d id one final sweep to make sure the stove was off, and the garbage was out, and let the neighbors know we were leaving. In our excitement to leave, we soon discovered about 50 miles into the trip that Joseph left the directions he had printed out on the kitchen counter.

I could kick myself because of all things I did not want to plan, I couldn't have planned my husband forgetting the directions. This was his MO but we didn't let it get us down. This was not a problem, we thought we would stop and get a map and do it old school like back in the day. Our first stop to a gas station of course did not have a map of South Dakota, we were not anywhere near our destination.

Lost In The Cornfields

So we got a map of Illinois. We figured we would probably have to get a map in every state until we reached South Dakota! We really were living up to our pledge to have an adventure when we saw a sign for a restaurant we saw on TV and wanted to stop there .

After a very good lunch, (Diners, Dives, and Drive-Inn's were right it was good) we started out to get back on the highway and discovered ourselves lost in the corn fields somewhere in Illinois. Every intersection was a corn field. As far as you could see, there was corn. I looked in the glove box of our rented SUV for anything that would help no luck.

Hitchhiker In The Console

Then I opened the center console and this beam of sunlight shined down upon a Garmin like something out of a movie. I expected to hear music playing in mid air when I saw it. It was like an angel. I was not a stranger to GPS. We did not rely on GPS that much because we never went anywhere until now.

We had the other brand, you know, the one that goes by the beat of its own drum like Tom Tom. The first thing I noticed when I turned it on was how fast it got a signal. That is one reason I didn't use the Tom Tom that much because I could be at my destination by the time it received a signal.

Chris and I were very excited to see this. We had no idea if it just came with the SUV or if the last person to use this truck left it in here, but we were happy to see it. We didn't have a manual but it was not very hard to figure out how to use it. We entered the information in for the general area we wanted to go and in a matter of a minute; the Garmin was talking to us telling us how to get back on the highway and on our way.

Saw Much More Than If Winging It

That's the other nice thing we noticed, Garmin talks to you unlike the other brand. We had a long way ahead of us so I played around and found out the Garmin is loaded with information. It will tell you every restaurant close by, where hotels and motels are. Even places of interest are listed.

If I had known Garmin had all this, we would not be relying on our "if we see it we will stop" motto. There were so many interesting things to see on the w ay that were not necessarily along the beaten path. You had to make some slight detours, but some were well worth it. We saw much more with the help of Garmin that we would have seen by winging it.

It even made sure you knew what lane you were supposed to be in with what they call "lane assist". It told you how fast you were going and even blinked if you were exceeding the speed limit. Took me awhile to figure that out but I thought that was way cool!

You may be finding it hard to believe in this day in age but we are not high tech people. We have regular cell phones and just started using texting to communicate with our children. But you don't have to be electronic savvy to use a Garmin. It really was very user friendly and did not take long to discover all the extra things it was capable of doing.

No Way Are We Traveling Without This Hitchhiker Again

This company really put a lot of thought into this in our opinion. And we don't eve n know all it can do yet. We still had our adventure and even though we wanted to do this without the use of electronic gadgets, we were so happy we had the Garmin. We didn't miss the TV, or computer, and such but if I ever went on a long trip like this again there is no way we would go without it.

When we got back home we went online and found a great website loaded with information and the best place to buy a Garmin for the best price. I also have some of my Christmas shopping done as we decided to get a Garmin 1350LMT for each of our children. We learned a little more when we got home that the LMT means lifetime maps and traffic updates that Garmin provides.

What else will they think of? Despite our resistance to succumb to the electronic age, there are some advantages to being an electronic gadget junkie. So honey, where do you want to go next?

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