Byte by Bite

Road Trip

by Marv Dealy

I’d noticed discrepancies in the trip planning, what with Google, Windows Local Live, and Mapquest showing different drive times and distances, sometimes by considerable amounts.

Having completed the trip (just under 2300 miles) I can report there are clear winners and losers in the driving directions wars. I followed this route: Big Oak Flat, California, to Weed, California, then to Crater Lake, Oregon, to Tualatin, Oregon, to Friday Harbor, Washington, to Chelan, Washington, to Othello, Washington, to Richland, Washington, to Walla Walla, Washington, to Lakeview, Oregon, then return to Big Oak Flat.

The big loser—Google (Maps.Google.com). They couldn’t figure out two of the legs of the trip (Weed to Crater Lake, then on to Tualatin) reporting neither a distance or time.

The big winner—Microsoft’s Local Live. A word about the name of the service. I’m calling it Local Live because that’s the web address (Local.Live.com) even though when you go to the website it’s clearly branded as Live Local. We’ll give either their geek or their marketing department an F for not getting the website address and the branding to match up. However, Local Live won with the highest number of close guesses for driving each leg in time and in miles.

A note—if what you want is to head to the nearest freeway and get to where you’re going as fast as possible then any of these major map services, with the exception of Google, can get you to where you’re going. They will, without fail, head you toward the nearest freeway then have you aim at your destination. There is sometimes an option for choosing the shortest distance or the shortest time, but that’s it.

For a driver on a road trip, there are many difficulties with all three major services in planning a trip that uses scenic—or winding—roads exclusively to get from here to there. Google, again, get’s it wrong the most frequently. For example, to plan the leg from Lakeview to Big Oak Flat, it was easy with Mapquest—I just entered the request and there was the trip with the route over Highway 88 into Jackson. With Google, however, I had to map the distance from Lakeview to Carson City, Nevada, then from Carson City to Jackson, California, and finally from Jackson to Big Oak Flat to get the route I wanted. Local Live took two legs to figure out the trip, from Lakeview to Jackson, then from Jackson to Big Oak Flat. If I just let Google and Local Live choose their own routes they inevitably took me west from Lakeview, headed for Interstate 5, then south, the most boring route possible.

Local Live was the most accurate consistently with longer legs of the trip, getting three of the driving times for the four legs over 250 miles the closest and getting the distance the closest to actual six out of ten times.

How were the programs to actually use to do all this planning? Mapquest scores the highest—it’s a straight forward approach to either finding a specific address or getting from one place to the other. Both Google and Microsoft’s websites offer a lot more stuff that can get in the way.

In areas where I wasn’t familiar with the available accommodations, I used Google Earth to spot a cluster of possibilities near my destination. Tool tip popups over each possibility would generally link to their website where I could learn more and make reservations if desired or at least find a phone number.

I can report on two additional technology-related items that I observed along the way. As soon as I got out of the general vicinity of Tuolumne and Calaveras Counties, my cell phone worked everywhere except for the northern reaches of Lake Chelan, Washington. Even sailing from Friday Harbor up to Roche Harbor found ample cell phone coverage. In the middle of nowhere in Oregon on Highway 395 my office called, as did a customer.

Free Internet was available everywhere, and speeds ranged from pretty bad in Lakeview to really good in Tualatin and Walla Walla. I took the laptop along on the sailboat to see if we couldn’t pick up a little Internet from the million dollar homes with billion dollar views along Roche Harbor Road on San Juan Island. While in route, we didn’t find a single signal, much to my surprise. There was a pay-to-play service available in Friday Harbor, and it advertised itself as catering especially to mariners, although I was only able to actually see their signal in the two harbors on the island, not in the waterways surrounding. I had free service at the hotel so didn’t bother to sign up for a day to try the pay-to-play service.

Subjective findings? Best bed—Friday Harbor (and I don’t say that under the influence of salt water). Best jacuzzi bath—Weed (sit in the tub and look out over the balcony to see Mt. Shasta). Best layout for the suite—Chelan. Worst layout—Tualatin. Most balconies overlooking man-made lake—Tualatin.

About the xB—it proved itself quite nicely. Roads it liked were Washington State Route 20 east from Anacortes, Washington over Washington Pass, traveling by the incredibly colored Diablo Lake in route. Just after the pass I found myself surrounded by two immaculate Model A Fords and about a half dozen early 40s and 50s American V8s. The weather was changeable with snow flurries at the pass and rain up to there, clearing on the east side of the pass as the weather generally does there.

I slowed to the gait this elongated group were traveling, taking pictures as best I could out the windows and into the rear view mirror. I went ahead a couple of times then waited alongside the road so I could take pictures as they passed, and met and spoke with one of the driving couples at a rest stop—she behind the wheel of an exquisite Model A and he dressed properly in a period-piece insulated mechanics one piece. At another point, in the midst of a cloud burst, I found myself being tailed by an incredible maroon 1940s Ford.

Another favorite highway of the Box was the road between Minden, Nevada and Jackson. Highways the Box and I enjoyed least were freeways through Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle. We had no difficulty keeping up with the pack; in fact the Box seems to like the fast lane just fine. The stock radio/cd system is quite capable of drowning out the engine that gets somewhat busy sounding at around 80. Only the severest of side or quartering winds gave any problems at all. The windshield spells death to all bugs apparently as none within a square mile at any time were safe. The Box turns out to be toss-able on windy roads, brakes well (in the NASCAR sense), and with a tachometer that doesn’t red line until 6500 rpm or so and a five speed manual provided a lot of grins per mile.

Last subjective finding—owners of other Boxes in the middle of nowhere were generally stunned to see a vehicle like theirs and were likely to be older drivers who didn’t know whether to wave or not. In the metropolitan areas, Boxes are much more numerous as service vehicles and are decorated with predictable graphics that cover the whole vehicle.

In the spirit of the famously painted VW beetle, I’m thinking of ways to decorate the Box albeit not with house paint, kids and paint brushes. I’d welcome, but may ignore, any suggestions.