How We Navigate The Road.

Posted by Barry Houseknecht Aug 17, 2006

Navigation on the road. Now here is a subject near and dear to my heart. NOT!

I'm usually in a trance watching the road and listening to the dribble on the CB radio. My loving wife on the other hand sits with a trucker's atlas. The one we are using at present is by Rand McNally - "Motor Carriers Road Atlas", (got bigger print and the pages are laminated) and a book called "The Next Exit" in her lap. The GPS (global positioning system) is mounted on the dash basically directly in front of her.

She is the navigator, I am the driver, and believe me she makes my job a lot easier. A global positioning system (GPS) put very simply takes signals from up to 12 satellites and does a little math and projects you onto a moving real time map.

The Next Exit Book is a listing of what you will find at each exit. Listings include gas/ fuel, eating, hospitals, food stores, campgrounds, motels and more.

She uses the map book to see the overall picture of our daily trip. She uses the Next Exit book to see ahead to see how far to the next rest stop, or tell me how far it is to the next fuel stop. We try to stop for fuel at truck stops and we have some we like better than others, so knowing where those stops are is important to us.

Another thing we try to do is make a "one stop does all". By that I mean that in one stop we will fill the fuel tank, eat and use the restroom. Maybe not in that order but you get the drift.

She uses the GPS to see exactly where we are on the highway. You don't always have mile markers. In cities the GPS has more than once given us a much better picture of upcoming interchanges than those silly little insert maps provided by your map book.