Maps and Road Trip Planning

Today, Austin and I studied relief maps. Our book recommended that we build a 3-D clay map, which I found to be messy and unnecessary. I found a store online that offers a textured relief map of our county for $55 +SH, but I did not buy it. Sometimes, local interest points will have relief maps on display, but I was unable to find one on the bus line. Instead, we used 

www.MapHill.com 

MapHill lets us use a topographical map, which shows shading to imply the raised bumps for mountains that a relief map has. We compared the topographical map to the satellite map of our current city (by looking up the county and zooming in) as well as our old house in Maine. We noticed that industrial areas have a leveled valley-like appearance in NC, which we assume is a man-made result or a result of man working with the land. The undisturbed trees mimic the topographical shading only in some cases. Our current house is on a hill, which is not represented on a topographical map at all even though it appears to be quite prominent to us on foot. We viewed a topographical map of our state and noticed that many of the mountain edges merged together on the larger scale. 

To demonstrate mountains and valleys, we started to explore the Blue Ridge. Did you know that you can order FREE maps and brochures of the Blue Ridge Parkway from BlueRidgeParkway.org ? I should've known their travel and tourism would provide this, but I just found out for sure myself. I've also been secretly promising myself I'll get Austin to go camping and get a Ranger Explorer badge with me. We promised the in-laws we'd come up pre-winter for Dh to help winterize. Hopefully, we can coordinate our Maine trip during a peak foliage time and shove him in a hotel while we explore the mountains.

When I was a kid, we'd go camping every year during summer break. There are so many great memories, like when mom commented that her feat were so toasty and dad informed her that her shoe was on fire, when a deer scaled the table to eat a fresh hamburger right off of a plate, when I begged my parents to take me to Dinosaur Land...I remember that day so well. I was wearing a purple Shera t-shirt and we posed with King Kong. That's how cheesey it was. I loved it! Austin is not much of a hiker, but he loves animals just about as much as he loves impressing us with his knowledge of them. He'd have a great time if we could just weasel him into going out there with us.

Here's a link to the ranger programs and FREE printable forms:

http://www.nps.gov/shen/learn/kidsyouth/beajuniorranger.htm

When our brochures come in the mail, I want Austin to plan a road trip for us including respectable pit stops. I think it'd be a fun break from our History textbook. It'll be a nice mini exercise before planning a trip to Maine. I've decided to be nice and give him the option of choosing 81 as the long way or 95 which includes to-date toll calculations. Austin doesn't like big projects because they stress him out and there's no listed tasks, but if it's something that's important to him he's all on board. I think he'll be more excited about going to the woods if he can boss us with directions and a schedule the whole way there.

It's important to me that we plan trips and execute them, so that Austin can practice for when he's an adult. I learned from Ray's business trip to Allentown that the GPS is not always a reliable source of directions. Sometimes the gas station you want to stop at ends up not having a bathroom or being closed for quite some time. As we study types of maps and how to read them, I want him to apply his knowledge. I want him to call places to check their hours before we depend on them, check reviews of hotels, and plan fun things to do with backup plans and a budget. Who knows, when he grows up, maybe he'll travel the world. It'd be comforting to know that he can depend on his preparations if the GPS goes out, you know.