My Adventure or Don't trust Your GPS

Saturday afternoon I'm going up I-29 between St Joe, Mo and Nebraska Hwy2 (my intended exit) and the GPS tells me to take the exit for Langdon, a town i've never noticed. I couldn't think how taking that exit would speed my trip home, but I thought what the hell. The whole area had been under water last year from the big flood and the blacktop was in bad shape. But I thought it might take me some where. A couple miles later I see my favorite sign: "pavement ends." I pulled up to an intersection of gravel going in 3 directions. i took the opportunity to clean my face shield and lose a layer of shirt, then rode back. The GPS recommended the next exit after that, but I ignored it that time.
The end.

I hear you!
I've had mine say turn now showed the line, but in real life there was nothing but woods, and have been lead down dirt roads as well that didn't start out dirt.

I travel for a living... Nothing worse than getting in a rental and My TomTom not kowing where to go.

When I ride with a GPS I program destinations in and number them as favorites or stopping points.
Then I drive to number one, two, three, stop for gas. Four, Five, you get the point.
I can hit a lot of back roads without being lost.

Some routes I use Google Earth to make sure the road is paved.

My GPS lost its mind crossing a bridge the other day.  Crossed the bridge and it started "recalculating."  Sent me back the way I came, again, "recalculating" after crossing the bridge.  Turned around, crossed back in the original direction and ignored the "recalculating" prompts.  A couple of miles from the bridge everything was back to normal.

It is all part of the Adventure!

Two years ago, coming back from TMac, my Garmin was supposed to be aiming me at Port Huron.  It takes me off at an exit in Detroit, and I'm looking at the Ambassador bridge all of a sudden.

I didn't think that backing away from a border crossing was prudent, so I carried on, but I've never quite trusted that little $%^ since...

Glenn

My Garmin 60csx has the option to calculate "shortest distance" or "fastest time".   Choosing the former will require a dirtbike to get down the single tracks, alleys and un-paved roads that it pulls up.   Then are the unexplained U-turns it tries to get me to do for no reason . . .  Sometimes I just use it to tell me where I am on the paper map!

A GPS is like asking directions from a woman. :)

It's certainly not an adventure if you turn around and go back.... Next time, plough onward and see where the road takes you.... you just might end up somewhere awesome. Take your camera and don't turn back.  Save that KLR for the street riding.

Last weekend when travelling from Germany back home, on several occasions the spoken directions of my Garmin were not in accordance with what it showed on the map. That, and the amount of detours because of road contruction had me fall back on the always trustworthy GDS (global direction system): the sun.

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good thing it had stopped raining.......

On my last two long tours I have ended up on gravel roads (some mud too) for a bit................some of it self inflicted but if you are trying something new then....................

You can never tell what you will find out there...especially if you are exploring a bit.
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