GPS: I'm A Believer

Ever since I could first drive I have been taking lengthy road trips throughout the Midwest. Subsequently, I have pretty decent sense of direction and feel at least somewhat comfortable driving in most of the major cities in the Midwest. Because of this I have never had much use for a GPS system and always kind of laughed to myself when people would talk about using their GPS to get them places.

When I bought my new car the satellite navigation was paired with the stereo upgrade. I definitely wanted the stereo upgrade and though I've never had much use for a GPS system I decided it was worth the extra money because I thought it possibly could be useful in the future for trips.

I drove my car for nearly 2 months without touching the navigation controls. Then last week Sarah and I drove down through Kentucky with stops at Mammoth Cave National Park and the Corvette Museum on our way to Nashville and the Opryland Resort (see pics below). I decided this would be a great opportunity to test out the GPS system. I'll have to admit I was a bit nervous at first. I've never been to Nashville and truly had no idea where I was going and it was a bit of an odd feeling to not know where to go and completely rely on the car to tell me where to drive. My fears quickly went away when I figured out how easy it was to use the navigation. First off, you don't even need the address of the place you are going. I just typed in Opryland and it found where I wanted to go. Samantha (the self named navigation girl in my car) reads off directions that are so clear that you would have to be a moron to get lost, and she does so in an informative yet not obnoxious way. It even updates me on weather, traffic, and construction. The whole system was simple and enjoyable to use.

So enjoyable, in fact, I've started using it a bit around Indianapolis. I don't use it daily - I've pretty much figured out how to get to and from work and I know where the restaurants and things like that are around my house. However, this week I was at a doctor's office and a hospital that I've never been to before. I loaded them up in the system and found them without any trouble. Today at lunch I was on the far west side of Indy (a part of the city I'm not too familiar with) and I had some spare time so I decided to run some errands. We were having a critical shortage of toilet paper and so I needed to go to the grocery store. Obviously not being familiar with the area I had no idea what store to even search for. So I entered Shopping -> Groceries and it listed all kinds of places where you could buy groceries with the closest stores listed first. There was a Meijer two miles south that I didn't know existed and it told me exactly how to get there. I'm for sure going to start using the navigation system for little things like that more frequently. Overall it's a pretty convenient tool to have.

Below are some pictures from our trip:

From within Mammoth Cave:





Me in front of the 2009 Corvette ZR1 which set the Nurburgring lap record for quickest lap in a car with stock tires and factory settings.




Below are pictures from the Gaylord Opryland resort in Nashville, TN. It is the largest non-casino hotel in the country (more than 2,800 rooms). All of the pictures below are taken from within the hotel. If you've never been there I would highly recommend stopping in for a night. It is really an amazing place.