[pct-l] MAP and compass

[Nathan Dreon]

I think compasses are fine tools and would not consider denigrating them or their use.  I own a compass but to me it is just a tool, maps are valued possessions and I use them frequently.

I liked Ned's info on how to use a map, there are other ways though.  When I was a kid, my mother, who, by her own admission, couldn't read a map to save her life, discovered that on long car trips she could quiet the savages behind her by throwing a few maps over the back of the seat.  (This was before cars had DVDs, kids these days don't….)  It improved her life and likely saved me from being left on the side of the road half way there.  We would open up the maps and the world would be laid out before us, at least a few mid-Atlantic states would be.  It was a wonderful thing.  Maps don't just help you get to where you are going, they show you places you could go, they show you possibilities.