I have an old, tattered Benchmark Nevada atlas riding in the seat pocket on the back of the driver seat of my 4Runner. I’ve got a pristine Idaho Benchmark in my book case.
I have an old Garmin 5” navigator in my Subaru Outback. My 4Runner has factory installed navigation. I keep both turned off except when needing to find my way to an address in Reno, Boise or elsewhere. Local roads around north central Nevada has seen little or no change in my lifetime. Except Interstate 80, which came through Winnemucca in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
I have an old, basic Garmin eTrex hand held GPS that only displays data. It has served me well for years. I have the cables that attach to an old Windows computer to upload/download tracks and way points.
At one time, up to the turn of the century, I had accumulated hundreds of paper topographic map quads. All rolled up and kept in tall, tapered, decorative copper cans.
I used an old version of Delorme USA on CD-ROM for years. Then I bought an old computer program on CD that displayed raw topographic map quads. I had only the California mapset. Then a friend suggested and I bought National Geographic’s TOPO! program and California, Nevada and Utah mapsets.
In the late 1970s and first half of the 1980s, I began to collect and mount to a wall, those plastic relief maps, trimmed and fit together. In time I had an entire wall covered with the state of Nevada. I traced all roads I traveled and places I explored with felt pens. I whiled away countless hours studying that collage, dreaming of places to visit and getting to know the lay of the land.
Nowadays, since all my software doesn’t work with my Windows 10 computer, I just use Google Earth.
I love maps.
